


Inhibitor: Case Files

by ranithepirate



Category: SHINee
Genre: 2ne1 - Freeform, AU, Angst, Blood, Crossover, Death, Demons, EXO - Freeform, Fantasy, Gore, Humor, K-Pop - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Romance, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, Violence, Werewolves, bigbang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:25:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5894461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranithepirate/pseuds/ranithepirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minho is a vampire hunter, the family business for centuries. All the dark creatures of the night know it, and can recognize the smell of a Choi, the looks, the weapons, the cockiness—so why on Earth is there a vampire helping him out?</p><p><b>Title:</b> "Inhibitor" – Four Shot<br/><b>Pairing:</b> OnHo, Ninja!JongTae, Broken!OnKey<br/><b>Other:</b> GTOP, KaiXing<br/><b>Rating:</b> R for language and mature/sexual themes<br/><b>Genre:</b> Vampire Hunter AU, Fantasy, Romance, Angst, Humor<br/><b>Warnings:</b> Blood, Violence, Gore, Death (not SHINee)</p><p> <br/><b>***Crossover featuring BIGBANG, 2NE1, and EXO***</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. CASE ONE

_Well, damn._

Minho groaned loudly, the pain in his neck burning like the fiery depths of the underworld. It was a familiar sort of pain, one that he experienced and then later survived as a child—but obviously his memory must have been failing him because Minho sure as hell did not remember the feeling being so utterly  _unbearable_.

Although, the intensified pain might be due to the bloodsucker still latched onto his throat, but those were just details.

In his life of twenty-six years, Minho had taken down dozens of rogue vampires―vampires that broke their oath and killed humans mercilessly. However, Minho had admittedly not been prepared for this particular attack, completely caught off guard by the vampire that he had been hunting for nearly two months.

“Get off me!” he growled, pushing against the vampire, but even Minho’s inhuman strength was rapidly failing him as the blood drained from his body. The vampire pulled away to chuckle at his misery, the two rows of teeth and unnaturally elongated canines glistening with blood as mirth shook his slight frame. Minho shuddered at the sight of his own blood smeared across the bloodsucker’s mouth, chin, and neck, staining his crisp white shirt.

“Oh, like simply  _asking_  will stop me,” the snarky vampire giggles, his feline eyes gleaming dangerously in the pale moonlight. The grip he had on Minho’s biceps was strong, bruising as his sharpened nails dug through the thick material of the hunter’s favorite leather jacket. It crossed the back of Minho’s mind shortly that he would need a new jacket after all of this was over, but with the way things were going, he was probably going to die and over would come much too soon.

Suddenly sidetracked, Minho recalled that he had not even stopped by his elder brother’s home to congratulate him on his engagement, which was exactly where he was going before all of this happened. _He’ll be so pissed_ , he thinks angrily. But then he remembers his mother― _Fuck_ ―he’d forgotten to mail the birthday gift! Now his body will go missing and his family will just assume that he’d blown them all off to kill some bloodsuckers―much like his father had. They already thought Minho was obsessed as it was; he could imagine them thinking he’d left until they finally realize decades later that in fact he had actually died all those years ago.

 _Well, if they ever do find out, that is_ , he reflects bitterly.

Minho decided it was especially worse that he was dying in the hands of a vampire, but again, those were just details.

“Get off him Key, or I’ll pry you off―this one is mine,” a new voice breaks in, so suddenly that it startles both of the men on the floor. The vampire sucking his blood, apparently named ‘Key’, whipped around to face the stranger. Recognition flashed across his surprised features.

 _Great_. That was exactly what Minho needed— _Another fucking vampire_.

He eyed the bloodsucker standing in the shadows, sizing him up even from his position on the floor. Unfortunately this vampire was much larger than Key in both body type and presence; his eyes were one of the most crimson Minho had ever seen in his entire life and their rich color betrayed the vampire’s age, likely centuries old―definitely much older than Key. He even had two rows of pointed teeth, a feature unseen in modern vampires. It was all a part of the training Minho received as a child, meticulously coached through the years in order to detect the age of a vampire within seconds of meeting eyes, through their smell and their looks, to learn how to stop them, how to kill them.

There were also special otherworldly abilities specific to the Choi family genes, like the inhuman strength thrumming through the sinew of their muscles, a keen eye for vampire bites unseen by the human eye, being able to sense when a vampire was nearby, and then getting a feel of their intentions, good or bad.

However, Minho had no readings on this new vampire, and that was discouraging as it was. There was something different about this vampire, something special about the way his skin was practically glowing in the moonlight, the way he looked almost ethereal simply standing there.

“Onew,” Key suddenly breathed out after a thick silence, a smirk pulling at the corner of his bowed lips as he stood straight. Cocking his hip to his side, the feline vampire murmured, “I haven’t seen you in a while. I just assumed you were dead.”

The other vampire shrugs nonchalantly in response, as if this sort of assumption was normal. And it probably was, from what Minho had gathered. “I’ve been around,” Onew responds. His eyes narrow when he adds, “And why are _you_ back in Seoul? You know the Covenant cut you off scores ago.”

“I stopped giving a _fuck_ about what the Covenant does a long time ago,” Key spits out, suddenly fuming. “I’m on my own.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“Not as dangerous as I am to the humans.”

They pause for a few minutes of unearthly stillness and Minho debates on escaping, but he has large, teeth-shaped gashes on his neck spilling blood from his body like a tap. It would be unwise to move—he’d lost too much blood as it was.

“Key, this needs to stop. You’ve gone rogue and taken the lives of fourteen humans. The Covenant isn’t happy,” Onew advises.

“Figures—that’s why this hunter is out here to kill me, but as you can see, I’ve got him taken care of,” Key responds smugly, gesturing to the bleeding man sprawled on the floor, and a brief  _fuck you_  follows from Minho’s mouth. The feline vampire wrinkles his nose at the poor sight, shaking his head in distaste. “I’m devouring him slowly. After all, we know that hunter blood is always the tastiest.”

Onew rolls his eyes, making their deep crimson color glint alarmingly in the light. “We also know that hunter blood comes with a price. You kill him on top of all those measly humans and you’ll have more than enough hunters and members of the Covenant you can handle on your trail.  You won’t even last a  _month_  without being found and exterminated―immortality is pointless if you use it like a fool, Key. Back. Away.”

When Key does not budge, the older vampire’s scarlet eyes narrow menacingly as he takes a cautionary step forward. “ _Now_ , or I will extricate you personally. I have business to settle with him.”

Key hisses with contempt, stepping back and jerking his head to flip the electric blue bangs out of his eyes. “Killjoy,” he grumbles childishly. Then his expression darkens ominously, the contrast frighteningly devious. “You were always the voice of reason and just this once I’ll take your advice, but I’m not done here. Don’t forget, you’re not as strong as you used to be.” With those words, his body flickers out of view for a brief moment before he is gone, blocks away by now.

Minho and Onew stay completely still for a few minutes before the vampire sighs with relief, tense shoulders sagging considerably. “I’m glad that didn’t end with a fight,” he says, to no one in particular. He then eyes the hunter who is still dying slowly on the ground, and before Minho has a clue about what is happening, Onew’s appearance flickers. He leaves a fleeting afterimage where he was standing milliseconds ago when suddenly the vampire reappears, leaning closely over him. “Don’t move,” he murmurs quietly, “I’m going to heal you.”

Minho twists weakly away from the outstretched hand. “How do I know you’re not just using that as an excuse to suck me dry? Don’t even fucking touch me or I’ll kill you, I swear,” he growls, glaring forebodingly despite the excruciating pain he was in.

Onew clicks his tongue distastefully, a brief chuckle escaping his lips, and with this angle his eyes flash sharply in the moonlight. “You are in no position to be giving me death threats. You are  _dying_. Let me heal you. You’re just going to have to trust me this once.” When Minho still looks disapproving, the vampire adds lightheartedly, “And anyways, I can’t eat you. I’m on a strict diet—no one over six feet.”

The joke does not help in the least and only aggravates the hunter further, but Onew is beyond listening to Minho now as he leans down and rasps his tongue along Key’s teeth marks. Minho winces as the wounds sizzle and begin to heal, thanks to the restorative properties of vampire saliva; Onew does it a few more times until the lacerations turn into bite-shaped bruises on the hunter’s neck, and Minho can feel himself regaining strength, finally able to feel his arms and legs as an indescribable energy surges through them―likely aftereffects of the healing.

Unexpectedly, the hunter leaps up, grabbing the startled vampire by the neck and shoving him harshly against the brick alley wall. Onew lets out a choked gasp, flinching when his head collides against the stone. Vampire hunters were strong, of course—they had to be—but according to Key, Onew was in a weakened state as it was, and with the additional strength he used to heal Minho’s fatal wounds, the pain of the collision makes him see stars.

Suddenly Onew can feel the burn of a silver gun through his clothes, pressing harshly against his abdomen, and his eyes widen in astonishment. “ _You wouldn’t_ ,” the vampire gasps.

“I told you not to touch me,” Minho retorts, still pinning the vampire against the wall as he towers over him. “I kill monsters like you all the time. Why would you help me? Does that even make sense to you?”

“I wasn’t about to watch you die!” Onew snarls back with exasperation. “Not every single vampire is looking for trouble!”

Scoffing, Minho growls, “Oh, please, save me all of your bullshit. I heard you talking to that other bloodsucker—” Onew visibly flinches at the derogatory term, biting his plump lip as he glowers up at the hunter, “—so why don’t you enlighten me instead; what ‘business’ could you  _possibly_  have with me? I don’t recall ever meeting you before.”

Smothering silence slips between them, nearly choking in its thickness. It was then Minho noticed that Onew was breathing harshly, face pallid in the light. He looked sick almost, as if he was dying. Realizing that the vampire was too weak to get away, Minho releases his tight grip and steps back, silver gun still pointing threateningly towards the shorter man.

“Why did you help me,” Minho prompts again, “especially when your condition is this bad? I could easily take your life right now. One less vampire, especially one as old as you, will not be missed.”

“You won’t kill me,” Onew finally declares, his blood-red eyes locking with the hunter’s charcoal black. “You won’t kill me because you owe me.”

Before Minho can protest, the vampire continues to speak.

“And you won’t kill me because you have something of mine.”

 

~~

 

Minho knew he should have killed him on sight. He knew it, but like an idiot, he did not. Asking him why was pointless though because honestly he had no clue either.

“Why the long face, hyung?” Taemin, the bartender, questions as he places a beer in front of his childhood friend. Minho accepts the full glass gratefully, devouring it in seconds. When the older man does not offer any explanation, the bartender decides to eye Minho’s companion. This was the first time Taemin had seen someone follow Minho into his bar. Minho liked being alone and working alone—his only friend was Taemin, and that was only because they were neighbors as children.

The new person was sweet-faced and had the cutest smile directed constantly towards Minho, who was very obviously doing his absolute best to ignore it. Amused, Taemin decides to ask, “Would you like something to drink?”

The person finally tears his gaze from the tall man and locks it on Taemin for the first time. Taemin notices the crimson irises and comprehends that this man must not be human. “We’ve got everything—alcohol, juice, water—you name it,” the bartender continues, unruffled. Minho’s supernatural abilities and hunting services attracted all kinds of customers, from fairies to witches. Just the other day an angel dropped by for a glass of juice and even struck up conversation with the bartender for a few minutes.

But before the stranger has a chance to respond to Taemin’s offer, Minho scoffs loudly, “This bloodsucker would much rather sink his teeth into your neck and suck you dry than drink anything else you might have to offer. But I’m sure you’re not willing to supply  _that_.”

Taemin’s jaw drops a little and he takes a cautionary step back—after being around the Choi family since he was little, the younger man had seen his fair share of vampires, enough not to question Minho. Why would a vampire be following the hunter? More importantly, why was it still  _alive_?

The vampire has the decency to look scandalized, round cheeks filling with air as his plump pink lips pull into a pout. “I wasn’t going to bite him!” he defends. “And my name is Onew, not  _bloodsucker_ —that’s offensive and vulgar. You’ll hurt my feelings.”

Minho laughs drily, still refusing to look at Onew. “I’m not your friend. I can hurt your feelings if I want to.”

Onew looks heartbroken, and Taemin has an out-of-body experience as his chest begins to feel like it’s caving in when he sees the upset expression on the vampire’s face.

“You didn’t kill me. I think that constitutes as friendship, if anything.”

“We are less than acquaintances, don’t make it out to be any more than that,” Minho growls, finally looking over at Onew. The hunter had been avoiding looking at the vampire’s face because he had a misleadingly innocent appearance, his crescent-shaped eyes gentle and compassionate despite their sinister color, resting over a charming hooked nose, and plush, fat pink lips that stretched wide when he smiled. He was oddly...  _cute_ , and it unnerved Minho more than he liked to admit because of how easy it could be to trust Onew judging simply by appearances. “In fact, you are my prisoner," the hunter continues, ignoring the dejected eyes boring into the side of his face. "The seals I put on you will weaken you. You are defenseless as it is—your fate is in my hands.”

The vampire pouts again and the gesture pulls on Minho’s heartstrings. From his peripheral vision, he can see the puppy dog eyes Taemin is making at Onew, in awe of the creature. Minho flips through his mental fact book; when vampires need to feed, their bodies involuntarily release captivating pheromones that attract the most unguarded person in the vicinity. Unfortunately, that person happened to be Taemin.

“Stop that,” Minho commands.

“Stop what?” Onew inquires, smiling softly now that Minho was finally looking at him properly.

“You’re releasing pheromones,” the hunter clarifies.

“Oh.” Onew blinks with surprise as he glances at the bartender, realizing what was happening. He grins sheepishly at Minho. “I… but I don’t think going out for a snack is appropriate right now.”

“And I don’t feel comfortable talking to a starving vampire near my friend. Let’s go. You can, uh…  _snack,_ ” Minho cringes at the word, “under my supervision.” With that, the hunter stands abruptly—effectively startling Taemin out of his stupor—and turns around, departing through the doors he came from and leaving Taemin and Onew alone at the bar.

The vampire rises from his seat languidly while grinning toothily at Taemin, who catches a glimpse of the sharp rows and pointed fangs hidden behind those plump lips, making him shudder. “I guess we’re going,” Onew states with a small laugh. He locks his crimson gaze onto the young bartender. “Sorry for my bad manners, but I’ll properly introduce myself the next time we meet, for sure. Good night.”

He disappears like a flicker, leaving Taemin blinking back at the afterimage in his wake as the door to the bar burst open.

 

~~

 

Minho cannot believe that he was doing this. He was supposed to  _stop_  affairs like this, not  _watch_ —well, more like listen to, as he was turned away—it happen. Onew decided to feed off a pretty office woman going home alone late from work. He pressed the woman firmly against the wall of an alleyway with his body, sharp rows of pointed teeth sunken into her pale throat. The vampire did not slurp, or groan, or make any of the noises that Minho heard newer vampires make. In fact, it was the first time he heard a  _human_  moaning while being bitten—and, good god, was she moaning  _loudly_. Generally, the experience was terrifying and agonizing, and Minho would know.

“Let me know when you’re done having sex over there,” Minho calls, back still facing the feeding vampire, reminding Onew that he was making the younger man wait. A deep chuckle comes from the vampire, and with a final gulp he unlatches his fangs from the woman’s throat, leaving two clean rows of sharp teeth marks on her skin. He licked them closed immediately, the woman staring up at her attacker in wonder.

“Are you okay?” Onew murmurs to her, crimson eyes meeting the woman’s dark brown ones. She nods dumbly. Minho wants to scoff.  _Like the bloodsucker actually cares. She must have a vampire fetish or something_ , he decides. Onew covers the woman’s eyes, effectively wiping her memory of the past ten minutes clean as Minho knew vampires could. She faints in his arms and he gently places her onto the ground, propping her back against the wall before he saunters casually over to Minho.

“Did you get her number too?” Minho taunts. He still had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that he let this happen.

Ignoring the hunter’s blatant disrespect, Onew smiles good-naturedly. “You, sir, are an  _ass_.” Scratch out ignoring. “She’ll wake in a minute or two. We should get out of here.” The two men walk swiftly out of the alley, making their way down the empty moonlit street paved with stones.

“How did you do it?” Minho decides to ask, because he was curious how the vampire had kept the entire transaction so damn  _clean_ —typically, blood would have been squirting out like a fucking fountain, and the pain would have been awful, not make the victim moan like a bitch in heat.

“Do what? Make her moan?” Onew laughs while wiggling his eyebrows, hinting at a rather lewd joke—much to the hunter’s disapproval.

Aggravated, Minho curtly snaps back, “You know what, never mind.”

“No, no, let me indulge you.”

“I  _meant_ —”

“I know what you meant,” the vampire cuts in with a smirk, chancing a glance up at the hunter. The taller man would not even look at him, a cross expression adorning his handsome face, which was amusing all on its own. “I just have self-control. New vampires do not. The answer is really that simple.”

They carry on in silence, and Onew wonders where Minho could possibly be taking him. He notices the buildings eventually turn into posh homes that dotted neatly on either side of the road, the worn sidewalk decorated with cracks. Minho stops abruptly, turning around. “Wait here,” he commands.

The vampire pauses for a second. “How do you know I won’t escape while you’re gone?”

Crimson eyes meet dark black for a minute before Minho responds, “Because if I truly have something of yours, you won’t go anywhere.”

 _Touché_ , Onew thinks, watching curiously as the younger man made his way up to the front door of a house, promptly ringing the doorbell. The door opens, revealing a man that looked like an older version of Minho but with less pronounced features. “Congratulations on your engagement, Minseok-hyung,” the hunter immediately congratulates the startled man. “I’m glad you finally got hitched.”

Onew tries his best not to snicker too loudly, but Minho turns to shoot him a sharp glare, confirming that he had heard him.

“I—thanks?” Minseok responds, taken aback at the sudden appearance of his younger brother. “Did mom—”

“Yeah,” the younger replies before he can continue. “She told me. Can you tell her that the birthday gift is going to be a little late? I’ve got some…,” he shoots a quick glance at Onew, “ _business_  to take care of.”

Minseok follows his gaze, settling on the vampire. His eyes widen in shock. “Is that what I think it is?”

Nodding, Minho says, “Yep, a bloodsucker—an old one too.”

“Hey!” Onew protests, the now all-too-familiar pout forming on his lips once again. “Rude.”

“Are you going to kill him?” the older brother asks, ignoring the vampire.

Minho shrugs contemplatively. “Not sure. I haven’t decided yet. He said I have something of his.”

The elder’s eyebrows rise. “You do? What?”

Another shrug. “I can’t imagine.”

The two brothers exchange glances, and Minseok rests his hand on the younger’s shoulder. “Be careful,” he warns.

The hunter glances again at Onew. “He isn’t a threat.”

“ _Hey!_ ”

 

~~

 

“You,” Onew grumbles, “are  _offensive_ —and an asshole. I can be plenty intimidating if I want to be!”

Minho snorts. “Please. You look like a fucking rabbit and act like you’re sixteen. How frightening can you _possibly_ be?”

They reach Minho’s apartment building, and head to the thirtieth floor, room three-zero-five. He whispers something against the door, and immediately it glows white. Onew steps back, uneasiness revealing itself on his face for the first time that night. “The door is covered in holy water.”

“For extra protection; you bloodsuckers like to pay me visits when I’m resting, and it’s rather unappreciated,” Minho responds around the chants, a little more audible now. He finishes by making the motion of a cross on his body, and the door glows red, loosening the seal. Cracking the door open, he pushes Onew forward. “Go now, or in five seconds the doorway will burn you.”

The vampire complies without protest, flickering quickly into the room. Within seconds, the red glow turns back into white, and then fades away altogether. Shivering, Onew looks around the cluttered yet oddly organized living room. The smell of holy water is strong throughout the entire apartment, evidence that Minho uses it often. In here, the vampire feels weaker than ever, skin paling significantly, breathing harshly as his power slowly empties from his body.

Minho notices the visible changes in Onew’s appearance, shock widening his large eyes. “God, how ill are you? A healthy vampire would never have this strong of a reaction.”

Onew smiles warily, dragging himself over to the couch and collapsing on top of it. “Actually… I was hoping  _you_  could tell me.”

The hunter’s eyes narrow as he makes his way towards the vampire, sitting on the couch across from him. “And how exactly would I know?” he questions.

“Well, let me explain,” Onew begins, hesitant, “I actually don’t remember anything before the seventeenth century.”

Minho blinks back in surprise. “What?”

“My memory has been wiped clean. I vaguely remember bits and pieces of my life before turning into a vampire, otherwise…” They make eye contact. “I’m a blank slate.”

The younger man contemplates this for a few minutes before saying, “I don’t know why you’re telling me this seeing as I have no information to offer you. I mean, how do you know I didn’t just bring you here to kill you? Just  _look_  at yourself.” Indeed, Onew looked sickly just lying there on the couch. The vampire had even stopped breathing—bloodsuckers had no use for oxygen, they just breathed to keep up appearances—because the holy water fumes were burning his nostrils.

The elder chuckles, eyes squinting and nose crinkling. It is a weak laugh, but he looks amused nonetheless. Minho feels a small pang of remorse, only because Onew was likely the most humane vampire he had ever encountered. “I sure hope you won’t kill me. I haven’t been searching for you the past four hundred years just to die by your hands.”

“You  _what_?”

Onew sits up slowly, turning his body to face the hunter, but his eyes remain glued to his hands that fiddled together on his lap. “The first thing I remember after losing my memory is seeing your face.”

Minho blinks slowly with shock. “ _Mine_? But I was born twenty-six years ago, not four- _fucking_ -hundred!”

“Exactly―it was probably an ancestor of yours. Either way, I looked all over the world. I combed every continent, every country, but the lookalikes I found just weren’t who I was looking for.” The vampire glances up from his twisting hands, eyes connecting with Minho’s. “I was about to give up, I really was. I don’t even know why I came back Seoul—maybe I felt nostalgic? Then I found Key, leaning over you. It was only out of fleeting curiosity that I saw your face and… I just  _knew_.”

Onew smiles now, relief evident on his features as he studies Minho’s face. “It was you. I finally found you.”

The hunter does not understand why, but he feels guilty. He wants to escape the expectant crimson gaze, those hopeful, desperate eyes that looked at him as if he would be the answer to all of the vampire’s problems. He gets up, walking quickly towards his kitchen for a glass of cold water. He was about to offer some to Onew before he remembers that vampires only drink blood. After gulping down a full glass, Minho carefully discloses, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I have what you’re looking for. I haven’t even the slightest idea how I can help.”

A profound quiet fills the distance between them, and the hunter ventures a glance at the vampire. Surprisingly, Onew is still smiling. “I realize that,” the elder says, grin growing wider. “That is why I’m going to follow you until I know what to do.”

 

~~

 

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

“You know you want to.”

“I said  _no_.”

Onew pushes out a plump lower lip, moping as he places the cute pink stuffed bunny back on the shelf. “Your apartment is so plain and boring. It could use a cute little bunny to liven it up a bit!”

“You’re already jumping around enough as it is. I don’t think my place needs any more livening,” Minho retorts. “God, how are you over four hundred years old when you act younger than me?”

The vampire shrugs. “Don’t know. However, the saying does go that you get younger with age.”

It has been a week since Onew declared himself Minho’s official roommate. The hunter still did not understand how he went from killing bloodsuckers to rooming with one, but Onew was a harmless, law-abiding vampire—which were rare as it was. It also helped that Minho’s seals constrained him as a prisoner. Not that Onew minded in the least—he had gotten what he came for anyway. If anything, Minho was the one who had to suffer the pains of dealing with an extra ball of sunshine while working.

Now, the two of them were at a department store searching for a painting to replace the one Minho had ruined the other day at Taemin’s bar while chasing a vampire. With Onew there to help him, the amount of work it took to kill one decreased significantly, but it did not make the process any less messy. Minho did not understand why Onew helped him out. To be honest, the hunter thought the older man would be a hindrance. “The Covenant would approve of this,” the vampire had nonchalantly informed him earlier that week, dismissing any concerns the hunter pressed forth.

The Covenant was a collection of vampires that obeyed the laws agreed upon between humans and the supposed ‘mythical creatures’—over ninety-eight percent of the human population still did not believe in them, which was astonishing—although a majority of vampires did what they wanted anyway. Those classified as ‘rogue’ and were fair game for hunters to kill.

Minho let Onew decide which painting to pick as he could not care less, and afterwards they head over to Taemin’s bar. “Onew-hyung!” Taemin greets happily, a grin the size of Jupiter on his face at the sight of the odd pair clambering loudly through the door—well, Onew was the one clambering loudly; Minho just glided in silently after him.

“Taeminnie!” Onew responds giddily, equally as excited to see the younger man. The bartender and vampire had become quick friends, getting along mainly because of their corny sense of humor and idiotic laughter, but especially because of their penchant to tease the tallest.

The hunter scoffs at the greeting. “‘Hyung’ is an understatement. You should be calling this ancient piece of work ‘grandpa.’ Or ‘old man.’ That one seems about right.”

“Oh,  _shush_  hyung,” Taemin counters, the younger man wiping down tables. “In terms of mental age, Onew-hyung is way younger than you. The old man is you.”

Minho snorts in response, ignoring the smug look Onew shoots at him.

The two of them have not settled down on the bar stools for three minutes before a familiar feeling washes over Minho, the slight tingling of his head a reaction to the burning aura of something malicious nearby. “Did you sense that?” the hunter asks under his breath, intended for the vampire’s ears only.

Onew’s expression loses all youthful cuteness as his eyes narrow gravely, suddenly looking much older. His eyes flashing a darker crimson, he wrinkles his nose and nods. “I can  _smell_  it.”

As per usual, Minho waits not even a second before he is up and out of the bar, door swinging shut behind him. Taemin watches after him knowingly, and then exchanges a quick glance with Onew before the vampire flickers out of view to follow the hunter.

Minho is standing in an alleyway just outside of Taemin’s bar, two dead bodies at his feet—a little girl, around ten, and what looked to be her mother, probably in her late thirties. Carnivorous teeth ripped both of their throats out, leaving a nauseating and bloody mess on the floor and splattered on the walls. His expression is somber when Onew flickers next to him, appearing what seemed to be out of thin air, but Minho knows better; the older the vampire, the faster they can move—and Onew was  _ancient_.

The vampire is already leaning over the bodies, pink tongue laving over the mutilated skin on the woman’s neck. He steps back, licking bloody lips. “This is Key all right,” he verifies. “He really is merciless. No wonder we only dated for a century—we never would have lasted.”

The younger man decides not to point out that if the two vampires were human, they would have been together for nearly two lifetimes. “Can you still smell him?” Minho inquires. “Track him down and lead us to where he is?”

Onew sniffs a couple times for good measure, but then shakes his head. “No. If Key doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be. He’s crafty that way.”

Minho wants to scream out of frustration, but holds back instead. Counting the two bodies in front of him, the elusive Key had snacked on sixteen these past two months.

 _It would have been seventeen_ , his subconscious reminds him,  _if Onew hadn’t saved your ass last week_.

He never did say thank you.

Onew turns towards him and tells him a dumb joke about chickens, and Minho decides that he can postpone that thank you for as long as he fucking wanted.

It is not until much later that the hunter finally grasps that the vampire revealed he was gay.

 

~~

 

A month passes by easily, and Key seemed to have disappeared without a trace.

“He’ll show again,” Onew reassures Minho. “He’s the type to lay low long enough to distract you, and then pops up out of nowhere.” This made sense, considering how Key had mauled the hunter a little over a month ago. His guard had been down at the time due to the feline vampire’s sudden lack of homicide, but that was a personal mistake more than anything else was.

Back at the hunter’s apartment, the vampire was snacking on fried chicken while watching reruns of some crime show. Vampires may only drink blood, but they can consume food like any other human—although they did not have to. Onew just seemed to have a thing for chicken, reasonably more than even most humans, evidence in the form of empty tubs filled with bones littering the area around the couch where the older man slept.

That was another thing; vampires did sleep, they just simply preferred to sleep during daylight hours because it was easier to feed in the obscurity of the night. As a vampire hunter, Minho slept to accommodate that same schedule—it was less demanding to hunt vampires if you were awake at the same time, plus he did not end up as tired.

It is around six in the morning when Minho steps fresh out the shower and ready for bed, towel drying his hair as he curiously eyes the vampire chortling riotously at a joke one of the characters on the show made. It was amazing how quickly Onew adapted to being in the constant presence of holy water. It seemed that so long as he was regularly fed—with chicken or, more preferably, blood—he could fight the sickness and nausea that overcame him around the water. Of course, coming into direct contact with the liquid was a different story; it still had properties that could severely scald him.

“Minho!” Onew exclaims excitedly at the sight of the hunter, waving him over as he practically bounces on the couch. “You _have_ to come see this! The episode is about some guy who thinks he’s a vampire and kills humans by draining their blood and saving it to drink later!”

Interest successfully peaked—not that he would ever admit it—Minho decides to indulge the older man, joining him on the couch with a dramatic sigh. He focuses his gaze on the screen, attempting to decipher the situation when— _Oh_.

Onew curls up against him, as if it was the most natural thing, and the warmth that came from the vampire’s body seeped into Minho’s skin, pleasant and strangely… affectionate.

Speechless, the hunter tenses immediately, unsure of what to do. He has never been this close to Onew before—heck, he has never been this close to  _anyone_ , as he was not the cuddling type—and it was insane how strongly he can smell his own scent on the vampire because of all the time the older man spent in Minho’s apartment. Onew smelled almost…  _human_.

He tries to watch the show; he tries really hard, but finds that he cannot concentrate when the older man eventually falls asleep on him, head sliding easily onto the taller man’s lap. Minho experiences a kind of tenderness in his heart that spreads to his fingertips at the sight of the adorable vampire snoring softly on his thighs.

To be honest, the compassion he felt scared him. How could he even begin to consider a bloodsucker as a friend? Did that even make  _sense_? Born into a family of vampire hunters, Minho learned to kill these  _things_ , these vile beasts that lurked in the dark. _I must be hanging around Taemin too much_ , Minho concludes. The younger man befriended Onew even quicker than the hunter had time to blink.  _Their friendship softened me_.

Still, he cannot help the strange, foreign feeling that curls at the pit of his stomach, threatening to burst.

 

~~          

 

Another month later, a dead body shows up in an alley closer to Taemin’s bar than the woman and her daughter had been. “Probably a university student,” Minho concludes, squatting down and studying the body closely as he continues, “young male, early twenties.” His throat was brutally torn out, a gaping expression on his face as he stared blankly up into nothingness. He looked like he saw the devil in the last few moments he was alive.

Standing nearby, Onew shivers slightly next to Minho, the breeze in the alleyway stronger and colder than the streets. December was fast approaching, that was sure. Onew leans over as he has done before and rasps his tongue against the gouge on the dead man’s throat in order to identify the slayer. His lips are bloody when he pulls away, but he spits out the blood immediately as if it burned him.

“Silver!” he chokes out, doubling over and retching a bit just before throwing up the contents of his breakfast on the cold pavement. Alarm spikes in Minho’s chest—silver was poison to a bloodsucker, and could kill if exposed to vital organs. That was why silver bullets were effective when aimed right. The taller man rushes over to the vampire, but the elder simply waves him away. “No,” he gasps out, gagging again. “I’ll be fine.” He heaves once more, this time dry because he has already thrown up everything. “Obviously Key knows I’m helping you out. His trace is all over this, of course—I can taste him on my tongue.” Then he laughs dryly. “Well, just barely anyway, what with all that silver.”

“You idiot! Why didn’t you just smell it? Your nose is just as effective as your tongue,” Minho reprimands, although he was more worried than angry. “You could have smelled both Key and the damn silver.”

Onew straightens up, looking up into the hunter’s eyes. “Well, the fumes of holy water in your apartment have effectively burned my airways, so I haven’t been able to use them recently. I can’t even heal myself because I’m constantly around it, but it doesn’t matter anyway—next time I’ll try to taste without actually touching. It won’t be as accurate though.”

Guilt tears at Minho’s stomach, making him feel accountable for what happened, but the vampire simply continues to speak. “Judging by the rigor in his muscles, this guy has been dead for nearly two hours, so that means wherever Key is, he’s long gone by now.” In an uncommon show of irritation, Onew slams his fist against the wall next to him, hard. It makes a cracking noise, ready to crumble. “Damn it, he keeps getting away! He is too smart to be acting so irrationally—I don’t even  _know_  why the hell he’s doing this.”

A small laugh calls the attention of both men, and the two of them whip their heads around to look in the direction of source. Key is sitting on the fence at the end of the narrow alley, a smirk playing on his lips and a sharp glint in his feline eyes. He flips his blue bangs out of his face, blond hair gleaming under the bright moonlight. “I’m glad you feel that way,” he responds, loud enough for Minho and Onew to hear him, “because I didn’t do this.”

Minho glowers up at him. “Oh, really?—then who else can it be? Onew said you were all over this body!”

The feline vampire chuckles, “Onew can say whatever he wants, but it wasn’t me.” He turns to Onew. “I decided to heed your advice and skipped town for a few weeks—can’t believe I had to come back to this.”

Grave silence blankets the alleyway.

“And why should I—why should  _we_  believe you?” Onew finally inquires, breaking the heavy atmosphere as his crimson eyes connect with the younger vampire’s. “I tasted you on him, Key. How are you going to explain that?”

Key’s expression softens for just a second. “You know me—I close their eyes, always do. Moreover, why would I ever try to hurt you?” Then his feline eyes narrow furiously. “Did you actually think I would plant silver on a corpse? Just to kill you?” Consumption of silver was one of the most painful ways a vampire could die.

“Then who was it?” Minho chances asking, breaking into what was about to devolve into an argument. He does not want either vampire to get angry—if they begin to fight, the hunter could lose both Key and the new suspect he was offering to name.

“Werewolves, of course—who else can replicate DNA like that?” Key retorts. “Well, I guess I should say  _werewolf_. I think you know who I’m talking about.”

Onew’s lips part in a dismayed gasp.

“ _Jonghyun_.”


	2. CASE TWO

Despite the few minutes that the feline vampire allows Onew to simmer in this new onslaught of information, the eldest still cannot wrap his head around Key’s big reveal.

“But, _Jonghyun_? Last time I saw him, he was in China. He can’t possibly be—”

“Well, he _is_ back,” Key cuts him off with an exasperated sigh and dramatic roll of the eyes, and Onew is somewhat bewildered by the overpowering wave of nostalgia that overcomes him, “and clearly trying to get your attention by using _me_ as a catalyst. The first time didn’t work so he planted silver on this one. I suppose in his rush, he forgot to shut the eyes… but mistakes are really so unlike him. If I have to be honest, I think he did it on purpose.” Key’s grave expression breaks into a wry smile. “He’s always so extravagant.”

Onew laughs dryly in response, no humor in his voice. “There are better ways to gain my attention than planting silver on a corpse.”

“Not to him—you know how he can be.”

Minho looks on in confusion, feeling lost and hating every minute of it. Onew throws a knowing glance in his direction, just before bending over and retching strenuously again, a gruesome reminder that he was poisoned. Although, this time, a distressing amount of blood splatters onto the concrete, obviously his, but when Key and Minho move towards him in a show of concern, the eldest shakes his head and waves them away.

“No, no. I’m fine,” he tries to convince, and even though it is not working, the other two let it be. “Let’s go talk at Taemin’s. I need to sit down.”

Neither Key nor Minho objects the request, beginning the short walk towards the bar.

“Minho-hyung! Onew-hyung!” Taemin’s expression visibly cheers at the sight of the pair shuffling through the door and into the bar. It had been a slow night, as Sundays always were, and the bartender could use the company of the older men. His bright smile immediately falls at the sight of Onew limping slightly and rebuffing Minho’s insistent endeavors at supporting him. The vampire attempts to return a weak smile, slightly pained expression diluting the authenticity of it, one that Taemin can see right through. The hunter on the other hand just looked pissed, and every time Onew brushed off his help, he grumbled furiously under his breath, a habit that reveals itself only when Minho is anxious.

Taemin moves a few steps towards them, concerned for the vampire’s well-being. Although it was not the first time one of them came back injured these past two months, it seemed pretty serious this time; Onew looked ghastly pale and faintly blue. At that exact moment, the youngest notices a tall, slender man slip in right behind the two others, hair blonde and bangs dyed blue brushing over a pair of sharp feline eyes.

The bartender looks questioningly at the third man sauntering in, obviously following the other two. “And who’s that?” he asks. Key flashes Taemin a huge smile, showing off sharp canines glinting in the dim lighting, and the youngest man gasps in response, shooting a slightly scandalized glance at Minho. “You really are losing your touch, hyung. You used to take down seven to ten vampires every month, but now this is the _second_ vampire you’ve taken under your wing in the past three months.” Not that Taemin was complaining—he quite liked Onew.

“I haven’t taken him anywhere,” Minho growls, eyeing the blue-haired vampire suspiciously. The last time they had seen each other, Key was in the middle of sucking him dry in a nearly successful scheme to take his life. The only reason Key was not dead yet, Minho concludes, was that he needed these dead bodies to stop showing up. The Covenant personally assigned him to this mission, and if it really had to do with werewolves, he would need all the help he could get.

Suddenly Onew dry heaves again, more blood splattering on the previously pristine floor, catching everyone’s attention. “Fuck, sorry Taem,” he apologizes, cursing as he wiped at his bloodied lips. Mumbling sullenly, he adds, “It’s not even pure silver. If I wasn’t so damn weak right now, I would have been fine.”

Minho feels a strong sense of apprehension pool in his gut, nervousness masked behind a stoic expression. Taemin starts to reassure Onew that the mess is all right—nothing a mop and a bucket of water will not fix—but then Key clasps his hands together loudly, successfully seizing the attention of the other men.

“Great!” he exclaims, bitingly sarcastic as he looks at Onew. “Since you understand how weak you are right now, why don’t you stop suffering under a lighted torch for your boyfriend and lovechild, and go drink some damn blood already?” His voice transitions to grave as he rises to his feet, hands settling decidedly on his hips. “I _know_ you understand that you are going to die otherwise.”

The blunt and tactless words render Minho speechless and perturbed—Taemin just looks horribly confused, wondering interestedly if he was possibly the ‘lovechild’ Key was referring to—but Onew, seemingly accustomed to such blatant disrespect, only chuckles. “Key, I have a duty to Minho, I can’t just—”

“Hyung,” Minho says, the familiarity in his tone making Onew stop what he was saying, crimson eyes wide as he fixes them on the hunter. He could count on one hand the number of times Minho called him ‘hyung.’ “You won’t survive if you go back to my place in this condition, especially not with the holy water. Go.” Minho trusted that Onew would not cross the line when it came to feeding, and the fact that he put so much trust in the vampire at all made Taemin stare curiously at his childhood friend.

After a few more protests later on the elder vampire’s part, all disregarded by the feline one, Key drags Onew off with him. “I’ll bring him back when he’s in better shape,” the blue-haired man assures.

“You better come back,” the tallest growls under his breath to Onew, almost helplessly as watches the two vampires make their exit. Onew hears him, and he looks back at Minho as if he did not want to leave, feeling uncertain as Key waits for him at the door, looking almost smug at the reluctance on Minho and Onew’s faces.

The two had been together constantly for nearly three months. What’s a few days apart, right?

“I’ll be back. Don’t worry, okay?”

“Yeah,” Minho responds, turning way.  Only Taemin witness’s the hunter’s lonely expression.

A sly grin blooms on the bartender’s face. “So, you and Onew-hyung…?”

“Shut up, Taem.”

 

~~

 

“ _You asshole_!”

With a chuckle, Jonghyun turns around. Key is standing there, in all his slender, blue-banged glory. “Nice to see you too,” the werewolf responds. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?” The two of them stand in the middle of a city park, no human or creature in sight other than them.

“You know exactly why I’m here, bitch,” Key nearly screeches. “Your prints are all over those bodies. What. The. Fuck.”

“Well, technically, they’re _yours_.” Jonghyun corrects, but then his eyes narrow menacingly. “And what the hell are _you_ doing? You know exactly what I promised that jerk centuries ago, I told you and yet you _still_ went out of your way to do this. You’re ruining everything!”

Key can tell the older man is utterly livid and the dangerous tremors in Jonghyun’s muscles a dead giveaway that he was nearing the edge. The vampire turns away slightly, biting his lips sadly as he remembers the exchange earlier at the bar. “If you saw the way they looked at each other, you’d shut up. They don’t even _know_ and they look at each other like they can’t live without the other.”

“I don’t care, a promise is a promise. If Jinki-hyung gets hurt or dies, the whole reason I’ve worked so hard will all be in vain!”

“So poisoning him was the way to go?” Key snorts, eyes narrowing sharply at the werewolf.

Jonghyun is just about ready to howl in frustration. “Depends on how you look at it, Kibum. Tell me, is he with Minho right now?”

Key hesitates, closing his eyes with a begrudging sigh. “No.”

“Then I’ve done my job,” the werewolf states simply. After a beat of silence he asks, “So are you with me or not?”

“I don’t think your way is the right way,” the blue-haired man responds almost immediately, annoyed.

“It’s kept him alive,” Jonghyun argues—why was it so hard for Key to see it his way?

Key glowers at the older man. “It was killing him inside.”

“He doesn’t even know.”

“But he feels it, Jjong, feels it to his very core, so much that it started taking a toll on his health.” There are tears stinging in the vampire’s eyes now, his gaze on the floor. “Don’t pretend you don’t know how weak he’s become.”

Jonghyun says nothing, biting his lip as he looks towards the moon, looking for a comfort in the pale orb, but no peace washes over him. “I know.”

“I couldn’t fill up the hole in his heart. It wasn’t me he wanted and I could tell,” Key continues, voice shaking. “I had to do something.”

Jonghyun gives a little, calmer than before. He understands completely; understands in a way that no one else ever could, and replies soothingly, “But this was not the way.”

Determined, Key turns to face the werewolf. “I don’t regret what I did. Baiting Minho with humans and luring Jinki to him was the best decision of my life. What they have was worth more than your promise.”

“If they die, it won’t be.”

 

~~

 

_[A few months earlier]_

 

An angry snarl rips through Jonghyun’s throat, piercing and feral as the short man kicks the ground in frustration, wood floor squealing noisily in protest. “Fuck!” he curses loudly, and Jiyong flinches, although more out of distaste than fear.

“Calm down,” he advises, “other people live below me too.”

“How do you expect me to calm down?!” Jonghyun spits back, wanting to slash something, strike something, _anything_ to make his irritation disappear. He can already feel the perilous pulsations racking through his body as his muscles begin to roll and spasm, practically shrieking in disapproval when he does not respond to instinct and shift into his more natural form. The beast within him was clawing unsympathetically at his insides, demanding to get out, and it did not help that the full moon was just around the corner.

Jonghyun growls again, this time louder and deeper, from the diaphragm instead of his throat, as he paced back and forth. “I spent the past _four hundred fucking years_ safeguarding my oath to that tall asshole, yet when I let up for a measly fucking _week_ to run errands for the alpha, somehow, someway, Jinki ends up back in Seoul and finds a fucking reincarnation—and not just any reincarnation, it’s _the_ reincarnation, a fucking vampire hunter! How in hell does something like that even happen! What are the chances?”

Jiyong’s head lolls lazily from side to side as he stretches his lithe figure and long legs, gracefully uncurling from his comfortable position on the black leather couch. “Fate?” he suggests, yawning because he was napping when Jonghyun ripped the door to his decent apartment straight off its hinges—effectively making it less decent, much to the older werewolf’s displeasure—and barged in as if he owned the damn place. “Some people are just meant to be, Jonghyun.”

The younger man snorts, disbelieving. “Yeah, that’s why he died, right? Both of them were fucking _immortal_ and had a chance at forever, but they still ended up like this—one six feet under and the other who can’t remember his own fucking name—did you know that he calls himself ‘Onew’ now? Like, _what the hell_?”

Jiyong shrugs in response, noncommittal; he never did meet Jinki or Minho, only bits and pieces of their tragic—according to Jonghyun—love story, and if Seungri had not introduced him to Jonghyun, he would not have met the shorter werewolf either. “Well, they do say history is doomed to repeat itself,” Jiyong opts to mention, because he studied the strings of fate when he was a just pup, and after so many centuries, people considered him quite an expert on the subject.

“ _Hyung_ ,” Jonghyun groans dryly, annoyed.

“What?”

“You’re not helping. I came to you hoping you could give me advice, not foresee doom.”

Jiyong laughs at that, and suddenly he remembers why he likes Jonghyun so much. “Okay, so why don’t you just start simple?—like separating them, maybe?”

“Can’t,” Jonghyun wrinkles his nose sadly, looking much like a kicked puppy. “I kind of made Jinki think we were enemies for the past four hundred years. How else do you think I kept him away from Seoul for so long? I doubt he’ll listen to me if I just ask, especially not after he finally found Minho.”

“If you did it once you can do it again,” Jiyong points out, and the younger werewolf whines, loud and high-pitch. Yeah, he did do it once—and it had been hell of _a lot_ of work, four centuries worth, to be exact. “ _Or_ you could find the root of the problem,” the elder werewolf adds, and Jonghyun thinks carefully, brows furrowed.

Who else other than Jiyong knew about the situation? Then it dawns on him, eyes widening almost comically.

“Fuck. _Key_.”

 

~~

 

A week after Key takes Onew away, Minho shows up at Taemin’s bar looking worse for the wear than usual. Somewhere between amused and concerned, Taemin watches the older man take a seat across from him, eyeing the cuts and bruises that marked the visible portions of the hunter’s tanned skin. “You really must have lost your touch,” he comments, “you totally look like shit.”

Minho never used to get more than a scratch or two, but he had gotten accustomed to a partner, and now hunting vampires had grown increasingly difficult—they put up more of a fight than he seemed to remember. Before he has a chance to respond with something witty, Taemin snaps his fingers, and a glass pops out of nowhere and sets itself on the bar.

“So, what’ll you have?” the younger inquires, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“What did you do?” Minho questions, although it is more of a statement, lips parted in shock. Mixed feelings boiled in his gut, but the prevailing one was uneasiness.

“I’m a sorcerer now.”

Minho just gapes at him. Taemin has always had an obsession with magic since he was a small child, researching anything and everything new and old on thaumaturgists, magisters, shugenja, wizards, warlocks—if it did magic, Taemin knew about it.

And now he was actually using it.

“What the hell did you do?” Minho demands again, fists smashing against the table and rattling the lone glass resting in front of him as it cracks. He was angry, but most of all _afraid_ because these things came with equivalent exchange—he had to have traded something big and important, like the lives of his family, or done a huge favor, like save the universe from a monster of some sort, and Minho had no recollection of either of those events within the past few days.

Moreover, the only things capable of changing Taemin legally by the laws that bound supernatural creatures were celestial beings, such as angels; maybe even a fairy or another powerful wizard, but Minho had not smelled either of those here. Although, there was the fact that Taemin had recently met an angel, but they do not randomly go around granting people immortality and unlimited magical abilities for no reason.

Another deep breath to calm his racing heart and Minho finally smells it―the scent is weak, almost non-existent, as if the creature had cleaned the air after itself; however, nothing it did could mask the pungent smell of something dark and sinister, with traces of hopelessness and despair tainting the atmosphere of the bar. Something demonic passed through here.

“Tell me you didn’t sell your soul to a demon for this,” Minho growls menacingly, standing up so quickly that the bar stool falls over, crashing loudly to the floor.

All traces of excitement drain from the younger man’s face, and he makes his way around the bar to stand next to the hunter. He places a calming hand on the elder’s shoulder in an attempt to explain. “Look, hyung, I—”

“Don’t try to spew any bullshit at me, Taem,” the elder demands, locking their eyes together. “ _Tell me_.”

Taemin laughs tensely, voice high-pitched as anxiousness seeps deep into his bones and settles there. He fixes his gaze to his hands guiltily, biting his lower lip—a nervous habit he acquired from Onew. “I… I did.”

With those words confirming the worst, Minho explodes like a volcano waiting for the right moment.

 

~~

 

It is nearing dawn, the clock just about to strike six in the morning.

“Hey,” an unfamiliar voice calls into the empty bar.

Taemin looks up at the sound, expression distraught when he is forced to gaze upon his mostly trashed bar. In a fit of unadulterated fury, Minho smashed nearly all the tables in half, and the chairs had been thrown against the walls like Frisbees, now sticking out from enormous holes. He shattered all the bottles, glass shards littering the floor from where the hunter had pushed them off the shelves.

The place smelled like alcohol, split wood, and the heavy, lingering feeling of rage and sorrow. There was not a scratch on the young sorcerer, as he was seated on the only remaining barstool next to the untouched area of the bar where he had been since Minho began shouting at him, needing to vent his anger on something, _anything_ , while calling Taemin out as a fool.

And maybe he was, but he wanted this, has wanted it for so long that it never even crossed his mind that he made a rash decision. He had gotten what he wanted, that is what mattered in the end, right? And it was not as if he would die anytime soon—after all, he had immortality by his side. Although, Taemin was a goner if he was murdered or poisoned or caught a deadly disease… and yeah, okay, there were a lot of factors when you put it the way Minho had, but at least Taemin had magic. He could save himself if he wanted.

Probably.

‘You can’t save yourself every time!’ Minho was near tears when he yelled this at him, and Taemin was all-out sobbing. ‘Even if you don’t die now, eventually you will! What then? How could you make such a rash decision? I won’t always be around to save you Taemin, I’m _mortal_. I’ll be gone in a few decades and that time span will be nothing to you when you live forever, I swear by it.’

Taemin had not even thought about that.

The shame kept him from trying his luck to cast a spell and fix everything in the bar; it crossed his mind briefly that maybe he can attempt to fix his relationship with Minho using magic too, but it was the kind of fight that even magic cannot reconcile quickly enough—it would take some time to heal. Minho had every reason to be angry; they looked out for each other like brothers since childhood and then he goes and does this.

“Hey, you okay?” the voice inquires again, pulling Taemin out of his sullen thoughts, reminding him that someone was peering through the window—which was cracked and badly damaged, but not broken completely.

“Just a second,” the bartender mumbles thickly, wiping away tears as he glances up towards the man. The stranger is on the short side, arm muscles sticking out in an appealing way from his wife beater, shirt clinging nicely to his abs. It was warmer than usual today, but definitely not warm enough to be wearing such light clothing.

Taemin goes up to the door, opening it to see the man up close. He smelled nice, and had a wild feeling about him. His expression looked concerned, and Taemin vaguely imagines the other man as a puppy, the thought making him laugh a bit. “Hi,” Taemin says in an almost-whisper, voice breathy as a hesitant grin graces his tear-stained cheeks, swollen eyes crinkling sweetly.

The other’s lips pull into a smile in response, showing off sharp teeth that gave away his classification.

 _Werewolf_.

Taemin’s stomach twists into a knot.

 

~~

 

It has been two weeks since Minho saw Onew and nearly a week since he saw Taemin. The hunter avoided the bar like the plague and stayed holed up in his apartment, still absolutely furious that Taemin sold his soul to a demon. His friend was much too young to have done something like this, barely even twenty-four and already bound to hell where he would be used like the Devil’s bitch after death.

He feels a soft finger poke between furrowed brows, shock throwing him back deeper into the couch as his eyes widen. Onew is standing in front of him, a cute smile on his face that turned his eyes into thin crescents. Minho cannot resist the urge to stand up and hug the older man into his body, holding him tightly around the shoulders for what seemed like forever yet no time at all, just inhaling in the familiar blessedly sweet smell that only Onew had. The piling stress that had been building up for the past few days disappears instantaneously, leaving Minho feeling much calmer.

He does not let go, which bothers neither of them as Onew snakes his arm around Minho’s waist to reciprocate the gesture. No words pass between them, the silence, upon converging with the soft sounds of their calm breaths, soothing. Why it seemed like so long since they last saw each other was beyond Minho’s comprehension. The hunter had gone his entire life without knowing the vampire, yet after a few months of Onew’s constant presence, the taller man could no longer get enough of him, and two weeks were suddenly unbearable.

“You seem stressed,” Onew finally remarks, but Minho does not want to let go of the hug.

“Yeah, there is a serious problem with Taem,” the hunter replies without pulling away.

Concern spikes Onew’s chest. “What? Did something happen? Is he safe?”

Minho says nothing at first, the sinking feeling in his stomach only combated by the soothing way Onew’s small hands rubbed circles into his back.

With a sigh, he responds, “Right now, probably. Later, I just don’t know.”

 

~~

 

When Jiyong exits his routine nightly shower, he is mildly surprised to find Jonghyun lounging on his living room couch—mildly surprised because he foresaw a visit. Well, two visits actually, but he could be wrong about a second.

Running slender fingers through his bright pink hair―recently dyed and still dripping from his shower―Jiyong settles himself onto the couch next to the other werewolf, black sweatpants hanging low on bony hips and white tank-top sticking to wet skin. “What brings you here?” he asks, curious.

Jonghyun shrugs, nonchalant. “Waiting on Seungri—we’re heading to the mountains for a hunt in a few minutes. Want to join?”

Jiyong just shakes his head in response, still full after those raw piles of steaks he ordered from Daesung’s butcher shop. “I already ate,” he replies, breathing in and out contentedly. At that moment he smells something peculiar, different from Jonghyun’s usual scent. The elder werewolf leans into the other’s personal space, sniffing slightly. “Magic. I smell magic on your clothes.”

Jonghyun eyes go wide, stuttering just a bit when he replies, “Y-yeah, I met a sorcerer. He owns a bar in Seoul.” He sniffs himself again for good measure. “I didn’t think the smell of magic was that strong?”

Jiyong stifles a yawn, already board with the conversation. “Must be a newbie—it takes more than a few decades of practice before any mage can properly control their powers.” Take Jiyong for example; although he was a werewolf, he has been practicing divination for centuries. Now he no longer needs to concentrate in order to get a vision.

Like now.

“Seungri’s here,” he declares abruptly, but Jonghyun has long gotten used to it, immediately standing up. “Please, open the door before that idiot—”

A tad too late, the door busts open, tearing off the hinges and clattering loudly onto the floor, not a second wasted as Seungri briefly glances down apologetically at the door. “Sorry, hyung,” he says, a sheepish smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.

Jiyong’s response is a groan. “First Jonghyun, and now you?—whose next? The poor landlady is going to have a heart attack.”

Jonghyun just chuckles, sharing a hug with Seungri as the two younger men make their way out of the apartment. “I really am sorry!” Seungri calls out again, already a distance away. Jiyong just rolls his eyes, body rolling out of the couch languidly as he makes his way to the door, lifting the heavy wooden object with ease and propping it against the doorframe.

He makes his way to the phone to call the landlady when a confident knock raps against the broken door. “Seungri, if that’s you, I’ll skin you alive!” Jiyong hollers from his place next to the receiver, clutching the phone in his hand and punching in the first few numbers of the landlady’s number.

“Close, but not quite,” a deep voice rumbles with a chuckle from inside his apartment and Jiyong’s breath catches in his throat. He drops the phone and it smashes onto the floor, long forgotten as the werewolf sprints to the living room.

He knew he foresaw a second visitor.

“Hyung,” he whispers, legs weak and hands trembling. He clasps his fingers in front of him uncertainly as he stares at the man on the couch, seated with a regal presence, and the charisma he exuded made it hard to breathe. The man grins, revealing two sharp rows of teeth and elongated fans, his beige suit heavy with the scent of human blood and something sweet. The crimson shirt he wears brought out his scarlet irises, their rich color locking onto Jiyong’s black ones.

“I know it’s been a while Jiyong, but what did I tell you about calling me ‘hyung’?” There is smile on the man’s lips, scarlet eyes glittering with amusement.

“S-Seunghyun,” Jiyong tries again, cheeks coloring at the informality. It had been nearly two centuries since he last laid eyes on the handsome vampire and it suddenly felt like he was one-hundred years old again, back when he first met the other man.

The vampire beckons Jiyong closer, pulling the werewolf onto his lap. “You’ve been spending far too much time with that other werewolf,” Seunghyun utters into his ear, fangs grazing over the earlobe. Jiyong bites his lip, worrying the flesh there.

“Jonghyun and I aren’t like that,” he defends, “we both like music, so we’re friends.”

“Speaking of friends, how’s his… _other_ friend doing?” Seunghyun continues, running his fingers along Jiyong’s thighs and to the hem of the tank-top, fingers lightly brushing against the sensitive skin underneath. “Onew—or Jinki, was it? Is he still wandering around helplessly?”

“No,” Jiyong answers automatically, turning around to straddle Seunghyun’s lap, leaning forward and brushing their lips together hesitantly. It had been too long, and in this moment of weakness he misses the way the vampire’s eyes flare treacherously in the dim lighting.

“Ah, so he finally found Minho,” Seunghyun chuckles, something dark hidden behind the laugh as he reciprocates Jiyong’s ministrations. “Good. Good for him.”

 

~~

 

Another month passes just like that. Jonghyun had stopped leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake; Key told Onew that he took care of it by confronting the werewolf in person. Minho files a report to the Covenant that both the vampire Key and werewolf Jonghyun have been quiet and do not seem to be a danger any longer, and the immediate response was to keep an eye on them and take action if they pose a threat in the future.

That would be nice of course, if Minho ever met Jonghyun. Key visited now and then, usually appearing suddenly out of nowhere, but the hunter had yet to lay eyes on the werewolf that framed the feline vampire these past few months.

On the other hand, Onew started to recover bits and pieces of his memories in the form of little flashbacks, triggered by sensory recollection—like whenever he hugged or touched Minho, or even the occasional, random conversations between the two would suddenly make him remember something. There were still huge holes in his memory and nothing he remembered would so much as hint why he forgot in the first place, but it was a start.

The hunter and vampire continued their escapades in the Republic of Korea, confronting rogues and taking down the ones that needed to be stopped. The crime rate had dwindled considerably in the past few months, but Seoul had recently become a hotspot for vampires, both foreign and native—their population quadrupled within the past few weeks, which was concerning. Something strange was obviously going on because for every twenty people Minho came across at night, one was likely to be a vampire.

Onew had no information to supply as his interactions with the vampire hunter left him largely snubbed by other vampires, and Key was more or less of no use as he was off in England to attend an old friend’s fashion show for a while now, leading the other two to wonder if he would ever come back. Normally Minho would go to Taemin for information, asking the younger man to keep his eyes and ears open as his bar had gained quite a positive reputation with the supernatural society.

However Minho was still avoiding contact, no longer because he was angry, but for Taemin’s safety. With this sudden increase of the vampire population in Seoul for whatever reasons, Taemin was in immediate danger if he associated with a vampire hunter in the scrutiny of the public eye, and Minho would rather not risk it.

Plus, the hunter had a new problem: another bloodsucker had started leaving a trail of bodies in Seoul, and judging by what Onew told him, this one was even older than he was, and probably more skilled too because Onew could not track him no matter how hard he tried. “The scent is familiar,” the vampire adds when explaining his deduction, “but I can’t put my finger on it. I must have met him before losing my memory.”

The whole thing was worryingly enigmatic, and although the hunter supposed he should not feel such special concern for the situation, he could not help the way the bodies that this vampire left behind made his blood curdle.

 

~~

 

_Minho knew he was having a nightmare the second he opened his eyes to find himself sprawled out on the ground of some forest, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to feel any part of his body other than the pressure of something sharp against his neck. It was a familiar sort of pressure, without the usual pain associated with it, a warm body leaning over him._

Vampire bite.

 _His mind was spinning, and he could feel his blood slowly seeping out of his body. He could not see much of anything; there were spots of black and white that changed sizes in front of him and obscured his vision. The lack of sight kept him from panicking like he knew he should have, but after a few moments of deep contemplation, Minho realized that there was a different reason why he was not panicking; he_ knew _this vampire._

_As the familiar scent wafted over him, fresh pine and clear skies, and his vision cleared, he could see the light brown wavy hair with the early morning light shining through the strands, the soft, smooth skin, and the heart that thrummed within the vampire’s chest as he lay over him._

_“Minho,” the vampire whimpered suddenly, “please, please don’t die on me.”_

_A shock jolted through Minho’s body right then, zinging up his spine and sending sharp sparks of pain to his head._

_If this was a dream, why did it hurt?_

_“Oh god, why isn’t it working?” the vampire moaned again, grip tightening around Minho’s biceps and biting harder. Right then Minho realized his blood was not oozing out from his body, but something else was going in. Minho struggled to remember, but suddenly painful jolts lit up his vision as if he were on fire. He screamed when he could not take it, the soft lips against his throat and pointed teeth digging into his neck now feeling like a million needles burrowing into his body._

_He could hear the other man laughing now, relieved as he pulled away. The vampire looked at him, eyes full of tears that rolled down his cheeks, mouth and nose smeared in blood. The blood trickled out of his mouth and down his chin, and when he swallowed, Minho watched the way he cringed at the taste._

_It was not Minho’s blood gushing from his mouth; it was his own._

_“You’ll be okay, Minho,” the vampire cooed, bending close to his face and pressing soft kisses against his eyelids, forehead, cheeks, and lips. He lingered there, and Minho shut his eyes to reciprocate, but he was still frozen, the pain locking his body in place and paralyzing him. “I love you.”_

_Suddenly, Minho remembers his name._

Jinki.

_His dream tilted over and changed scenes._

_He was leaning over Jinki now, who looked up at him with an expression that only showed love and this horrible, terrible sadness that Minho wished was gone. “I’m so sorry,” Jinki whimpered, “I shouldn’t have changed you.”_

_He was crying again, and a sharp tug in the back of Minho’s brain told him that Jinki was always crying these days, unsettled and broken. His mind also took no time to remind him that Jinki’s pain was his fault, that if he was going to hurt Jinki this way, he should have left long ago. Minho hushed the older man with a kiss, rolling his hips and catching a delicious moan from Jinki’s mouth. They were connected; it was always better when they were connected._

_“No Jinki,” Minho whispered back, “it’s_ my _fault. I should have been more careful.”_

_Jinki just shook his head. “If I’d known how much you would hate it, I would have never.”_

_Unable to stand the remorseful way Jinki looked at him, Minho thrust harder, until the elder vampire’s face was a mixture of ecstasy and burning lust, keening loudly into the darkness. After Jinki came, he smiled so beautifully that Minho nearly cried. He wanted—no, he_ needed _for Jinki’s sadness to go away. So he made up a decision, kissing the terrible scars on Jinki’s neck that Minho had marred there, moving up to parted swollen lips still wet from previous kisses, and finally against his closed eyelids._

_Right then he wished for all of Jinki’s sadness to go away. Minho did not know how far back it would erase, or if it would work at all because he was new to this and never wanted to get used to it, but when Jinki blinked open his eyes and stared up at Minho, the elder looked lost and confused._

_“Who are you?” he whispered as he looked at the taller man._

_Tears spilled from Minho’s eyes. “I’m no one,” he replies._

_The scene changes again and Jonghyun stood before him._

_“Not fun being a vampire?” the werewolf laughs, albeit sadly. He knew Minho’s pain, understood it because he understood Minho in a way a best friend did._

_“I’m leaving,” is all Minho says in response. “Take good care of Jinki.”_

_Jonghyun wants to protest, but Minho does not let him. “I promise I will,” Jonghyun finally says._

_“You better.”_

_The moment dissolves and now he is standing in an alleyway, his brother across from him._

_“What have you become?” Minseok whispers, horrified, eyes dull with agony as he pulls out the silver gun hidden in his jacket._

_The ache in Minho’s chest increases ten-fold as he looks at his brother. “End it, please,” he whimpers at the elder pathetically, “this_ thirst _.”_

 _The sound of a gunshot echoes so loudly that Minho is sure all of Seoul heard it. He closes his eyes as the burning in his heart spreads throughout his body, and all he can see and hear is Jinki’s laugh, his smile, those eyes, those lips, the perfect nose, Jinki, Jinki,_ Jinki _._

_And it all goes black._

 

~~

 

Minho gasps awake, sweating bullets.

His head is spinning, trying to process what he just saw; he nearly died and Onew―no― _Jinki_ saved him. He becomes a vampire, erases the elder man’s memories, and then he… dies. _Could this have been just a dream?_ Minho wonders. But it had been too vivid, and he felt actual physical pain; that was not normal for dreams.

He waits a few more minutes, closing his eyes and willing himself back to sleep, to see more of this vision. Nothing happens though, so he stares up at the ceiling in wonder. Maybe he saw someone’s memories? However, Jinki had called him Minho, so… his own? Minho shuts his eyes in frustration, rubbing the palms of his hands into his eyes—he had all this information and no clue what to do with it.

It is three in the afternoon according to the clock hanging on Minho’s wall, much too early to be awake. He typically woke up at six or seven―or any time around sunset really―to begin combing through the city until an hour or two after dawn, when he came home. Minho rolls over to his stomach and grunts angrily into his pillow—he’d fallen asleep at nine, meaning he slept for about seven hours, which would not be so bad if he actually felt like he had slept.

That was when he hears it.

A pained groan came from his living room, the noise seeping through the thin walls and door. The couch was creaking loudly, sounds of Onew thrashing around concerning Minho. He jumps out of bed and throws open the door, turning his head right to find Onew with eyes clenched shut, an expression of fear etched into his face.

“Minho!” Onew cries out and the hunter swears he sees tears spill down the vampire’s cheeks as he rolls into the back of the couch, making it thud into the wall, his fingers digging harshly into the leather and creating deep slashes where his nails press in.

Onew is having a nightmare and Minho desperately wants to make it stop―he bounds over to the older man, shaking him. “Wake up, hyung!” Minho nearly yells. “It’s just a dream!” The vampire makes no response, just whimpers as more tears fall from his wet lashes and into his clothes. “Please, wake up!” Minho tries again, and shakes Onew another time. Finally, the other’s eyes flutter open, disorientated and fearful as he stares up at Minho.

After a few moments of staring into each other’s eyes, Onew bursts into tears. “Oh god, I dreamed that you died!” he cries, and he latches his arms around Minho’s neck and pulls him close, body trembling.

Minho pretends that the horrifying similarities between their nightmares hadn’t happened. “I’m alive,” he reassures instead, returning the tight hold. “I’m alive.”

Onew does not let go, so Minho joins him on the couch, letting the elder cry into his chest. His grip is strong as his fingers curl into the taller man’s shirt, knuckles white with how tight he holds it against his face. It’s a while later until Onew finally calms down enough to even out his breathing, and he looks up at Minho who is looking right back at him. “Are you okay?” the hunter asks, placing a hand on Onew’s cheek and wiping away an excess tear with his thumb.

The vampire nods, face flushing a bit. “You don’t think this is… strange?” he asks. He is talking about the way they are holding each other, how Minho’s fingers are caressing his face so gently.

Minho thinks of his own dream, and how he held Jinki―much less chaste than what he was doing now, but still keeping him nearer than what as absolutely necessary. “No,” he replies, and then he leans down close to Onew’s face, so that he can feel the elder’s hot breath against his cheek. “And neither is this.”

He hesitantly presses their lips together, eyes closing automatically. It is frightening how familiar Onew’s lips feel on his, how their bodies slot against each other so perfectly, almost with practiced ease. The kiss deepens out of a habit Minho never knew he had, and Onew’s response is automatic as well, the small moan escaping his mouth making Minho shiver. Both are breathless when the hunter pulls away, their lips contentedly swollen and warm.

“Jinki,” Minho says suddenly, and he can feel the way the vampire’s heartbeat doubles in his chest.

Onew is trembling again, crimson eyes flashing with recognition. “That’s… my name.” His voice is tentative, yet sure at the same time.

Minho chooses to say nothing, simply leaning in again for another kiss; he really was the reason Jinki could not remember anything, and the hunter’s stomach clenches painfully at the thought.

He needs to find Jonghyun.


	3. CASE THREE

_[A few months earlier]_

 

“Your hair is pink,” the tall vampire was saying to the werewolf, “but it seems nothing else has changed about you.”

An abrupt gust of wind blew in from Jiyong’s open window—the vampire’s point of entrance—and forced open the curtains. The sudden bright streams of sunlight coming through the opening made Seunghyun’s head ache, his nose crinkling in revulsion as he moved over to pull the thick curtains closed tightly. He glanced back at the werewolf, who was still passed out on the bed and, as usual, sleeping like the dead. Nothing could wake him—even the wicked presence of a demon and a vampire he had not seen in centuries.

“Did you do it?” the vampire asks the demon, not even looking away from the dark curtains. When no response came he turned around, glaring at the woman—demon—seated on the couch in Jiyong’s room. She hummed quietly to herself, studying her nails as she filed them to a point. When she felt eyes probing into her face, she glanced up, half-moon eyes glinting sharply in the dim lighting as they caught Seunghyun’s.

“Hmm?” she purred, a smirk pulling at her plump, red lips. “Were you talking to me?”

The vampire growled in frustration. “Yes, Bom—who else would I be talking to?”

Laughing with amusement, she retorted, “Considering the conversation I just overheard, you could have been talking to your sleeping boyfriend over there.”

Growing impatient, Seunghyun demanded, “ _Did_ you or did you not?”

Tsking, Bom shook her head softly, wavy red hair flowing over her pale shoulders and onto her chest. “Is that how you should speak to your noona?” she inquired, standing up and strutting over to the vampire. “It’s been centuries since you last came back to Seoul and yet you’re already dishing out orders to demons and vampires of the like.”

When Seunghyun continued to stare her down, she sighed theatrically, rolling her dark eyes—the tables turned at that moment, his annoyance transferring to her. “Yes, I did. He sold his soul just like you said he would.” She tapped at the pendent resting on her neck as proof, the object glowing bright blue with the new soul it had just consumed.

Seunghyun smirked, nodding to himself as he glanced at Jiyong, still fast asleep and completely clueless of the interaction going on in his own room. “Excellent.”

Bom’s eyes narrowed and she moved closer to the tall man, pressing a manicured fingernail threateningly into his chest. “Your little plan better work,” she hissed quietly, “because he wished for magic. That kind of wish is going to bring me unnecessary attention.”

The vampire chuckled, stepping away from the reproachful finger. “Don’t worry,” he replied, “everything is going according to plan; I’ll be paying Jiyong a visit very soon.”

The demon did not look convinced. “You’re just lucky I owed you a favor,” she muttered, turning around and getting ready to return home to hell. “But you won’t be calling it luck if the deal you made with the Devil doesn’t work out―”

“Oh it’ll work,” Seunghyun responds, cutting into her sentence, “ _trust me_.”

A week later when he appears in front of a conscious Jiyong, he did not expect the setback of Jinki reuniting with Minho—things had changed since he last checked in on the hunter, and he had been too careless by not visiting in person, simply assuming everything was the same as it had always been.

It seemed like his plan would just have to speed up to match the new pace.

 

~~

 

_“And who are you?”_

_At the sound of Minho’s voice, the person he was speaking to turns around quickly, making eye contact with the hunter as soon as the two were facing each other. The vampire’s eyes were reddish brown, betraying his youth—_ Maybe a few decades old _, Minho reasons,_ and definitely a bloodsucker _._

_The vampire grins languidly, tilting his head to the side with curiosity as he approaches. “Isn’t it etiquette to introduce yourself first before asking about someone else?” he inquiries, a playful lilt to his voice; it was smooth and warm, more self-assured than most of the vampires Minho was used to encountering. It took him slightly by surprise, but trained to be ready for anything, the hunter provides a cocky grin._

_“Etiquette?” he scoffs, “For a_ bloodsucker _?”_

_The stranger’s lighthearted façade slips just a bit at the derogatory term, standing less than an arm’s length away now, which was dangerously close but Minho did not feel threatened at the moment. “I’ll have you know,” he counters, a slightly hurt tone feeding into his voice, “that I’m not like other vampires.”_

_“Yeah,” Minho agrees thoughtfully, “you’re still here.”_

_“I haven’t done anything wrong to run.” The vampire’s eyes glow challengingly in the dark and gleam an alarming fiery red in the moonlight. “You can’t kill me unless I’ve committed a crime. It’s the law.”_

_“True,” the hunter amends, “but cross the line once and bet your ass I will.”_

_They continue to stare at each other for a few long moments before the vampire’s plump pink lips finally pull back into an impishly sweet grin, eyes turning into crescents to match the moon hanging low in the sky. Minho cannot help but grin back, feeling like he was being pulled into the vampire’s spell—but that could not be possible, he was immune to vampire pheromones._

_Being born with vampire blood in you did that._

_As if he had read his mind, the stranger’s eyes widen in realization. “You’re Choi Yunkyum’s youngest son, aren’t you?” the vampire probes, astounded expression on his face as he moves even closer. He was in Minho’s personal space now, walking around the taller man in tight circles and examining him curiously from every angle; still, the hunter does not back down. “I’ve heard about you!”_

_“Oh?” Minho responds, amused and completely unsurprised—he got this reaction a lot. He was quite a popular topic amongst hunters and vampires alike. “And what would that be?”_

_“That you’re part vampire! Completely unheard of! Wow!” The vampire’s eyes are practically bugging out of his skull in interest. It is when he places his small hand on Minho’s arm that the hunter, with reflexes quicker than any human or creature, grabs a hold of the shorter man’s wrist, turns him around, twists his arm and pins it behind his back._

_“Ah!” yelps the startled vampire when the grip tightens. “Ouch! Wait! Wait, wait, ouch!—_ wait _!”_

_“Don’t touch me,” Minho growls._

_Whimpering from the pain, the vampire responds, “But I wasn’t trying anything!”_

_“Quit the act,” the hunter says, “you’re not that old.”_

_Immediately, the vampire’s whimpers stop, and the tenseness in his muscles loosen up. From his side profile, Minho could see the vampire’s sly grin. Vampires were less human when young, and less likely to feel pain, with emotions nearly as numb as wild animals; conversely, the older they got and the more blood they consume, the stronger yet more susceptible to pain they become. With time they become so human that occasionally it is almost too hard to tell them apart from actual humans―this adaptation over the centuries was how they managed to survive for so long._

_Usually it was their sharp rows of teeth gave them away, and not many old vampires were alive nowadays because of the mass slaughtering of them prior to the creation of the Covenant, and the treaty that was signed subsequently. It was almost too bad that most vampires disregarded the rules laid down by the Covenant._

_“You’re no fool,” the vampire amends. “I like that.”_

_Satisfied, Minho shoves the shorter man away, the vampire stumbling forward in a clumsy yet oddly graceful way. “I may have vampire blood,” the hunter confirms, large eyes probing into the vampire’s turned back, “but do not misunderstand—I’m not with you guys.”_

_Pouting, the vampire declares, “Well that’s too bad.” He turns again to face Minho, smiling fascinatedly as he rounds once again on the taller man. This time Minho does not move away, the vampire’s eyes sparkling when he stops in front of the hunter and murmurs, “Because you’re really cute.”_

 

~~

 

Minho wakes with a start, startled up from his deep sleep. He feels something warm burrowing into his side, and when he looks down he finds Onew’s face buried in his chest. The hunter smiles contentedly for a few minutes, happy when he realizes that their fingers were still intertwined from before they fell asleep—they had gone into Minho’s room when they remembered their exhaustion, but they continued to hold hands anyway.

After staring at the sleeping vampire’s peaceful face for a few minutes, Minho slowly recalls his dream. A few more moments of contemplation make him realize that the vampire in his dream was in fact Jinki. “Was it another memory?” he wonders aloud, thumb absently caressing the back of the slumbering vampire’s hand he was holding.

Onew stirs in his sleep, mumbling something about eating curry and how Key could not have any before shifting further into the younger man’s side. Minho chuckles, leaning down to kiss the vampire’s lips, when he hears it: the sound of silent footsteps in his apartment—the reason why he woke in the first place.

Panic settling in the pit of his stomach, he quickly unsticks Onew from his side, the older man rolling over and reaching for Minho’s pillow in the absence of his presence. He ponders waking Onew up for a few seconds but decides against it—unless it was a threat, he did not want to disturb him. It could be Key for all he knew, although the younger vampire had not shown his face around here for a few weeks now.

Minho was wrong to assume it was Key because when he left his room, he was startled to find Jonghyun instead—or, at least, a more mature version of the Jonghyun from his memory, his appearance nearly the same but demeanor infinitely more serious—sitting comfortably on the couch. Gone were the three-tier blond bangs and playful appearance, replaced by dark brown hair with bangs that swept over his lashes, gaze intense and expression solemn.

“I was wondering when you would hear me,” Jonghyun states when he makes eye contact with Minho, grinning and showing off sharp canines. “You’re getting rusty.”

Minho wanted to groan—first Taemin said he was losing his touch, then Key had the nerve to be cocky because Minho did not try to kill him, and now Jonghyun was telling him was getting rusty; obviously Onew was not a good influence on him.

“Jonghyun, right?” Minho inquires and Jonghyun’s eyebrows lift in surprise. He sits up from his comfortable position, moving to rest his elbows on his knees.

“Did you remember something or did Key tell you?” he asks after a few beats of contemplation.

Minho presses his lips together thoughtfully. “I remembered, I guess―just a few hours ago, in fact.”

Chuckling, Jonghyun said, “Yeah, I figured as much. I had to listen to you and Jinki make out for like two hours before the both of you finally went to sleep.”

Minho would blush if he was not so shocked. “You _what_?”

Jonghyun’s smile returned, sheepish. “I actually came to kidnap Jinki-hyung in his sleep, but… you guys looked so content sucking face that I didn’t want to… disturb.” Suddenly his expression transitions from wistful to grave, eyes narrowing as they settle on Minho with a studying look. “And then you called him Jinki—what was that about? How much do you actually remember?”

“That is no way to talk to your best friend when reuniting after several centuries,” is Minho’s response, a mischievous grin blooming on his face. Jonghyun’s grim mask falls away instantly, a broken smile replacing the tight-lipped expression from before. Jaw trembling and eyes watering pathetically, he releases a sob of happiness and jumps to his feet, wrapping his strong arms around Minho’s form and squishing the taller and slightly less muscular man against his broad-shouldered body.

“Oh hell,” Jonghyun rasps, happiness pouring from every inch of him, nose burrowed into Minho’s sturdy chest, “holy _shit_ , you remember― _someone_ actually fucking _remembers_!” The relief in his voice brings Minho to tears, and he would return the hug if Jonghyun’s arms were not crushing his own underneath. “You don’t know how lonely I was without you and Jinki bothering me every day. These past four hundred years… I just missed you guys so, so much.” A few more sobs rack his body, shaking Minho with him. “I missed _you_ , man.”

Jonghyun’s happiness soon devolves into anger however, and the next thing Minho knows, the werewolf’s comforting hug turns bone-crushing. “How fucking _dare_ you go and get yourself killed! After making me promise to watch out for Jinki? You knew how I felt about him, about you two.”

Minho is taken slightly aback, hesitant as he responds, “I’m afraid I don’t remember that far.”

Jonghyun releases his best friend, setting the hunter on his feet. The blood in Minho’s body begins to circulate again, and he inhales deeply now that his lungs can expand properly. The werewolf is staring at him curiously, eyes still wet under his long, dark lashes. “What _do_ you remember, then?”

The hunter explains his dream from beginning to end, the only awkward part when he recounted the moment he erased Jinki’s memories; Minho does not miss the way Jonghyun tenses when he talks about it, and Minho’s heart clenches painfully for a reason he can’t even remember, at least not yet. “So you don’t remember much,” Jonghyun says, somewhat relieved but also worried. He looks into Minho’s eyes and the younger sees the werewolf’s dark brown orbs flash gold for just a millisecond. “There is a reason you got yourself killed, Minho―and it’s not just because you became a vampire.”

Gulping audibly, Minho asks, “Can… can you tell me?”

Jonghyun purses his lips, staring at his hands. Minho follows his gaze, gasping silently when he finally sees the scars littering Jonghyun’s thick fingers and forearms. Minho’s gaze trails up and this time he looks, really _looks_ , at Jonghyun, noticing the scar on his collarbone, revealed by the v-neck the elder wore, and another just below his left eye. The marks looked centuries old, healed over time and nearly gone due to self-repair capabilities that werewolves—and vampires—had, but they told a story of a near-death experience that Minho was not sure he wanted to know.

Their gazes lock again, and Minho’s heart throbs painfully when he notices the suffering look on Jonghyun’s face. “New vampires… are barely human, Minho. But as a hunter, I’m sure that you already know that.” Minho nods in response, practically able to hear the words that Jonghyun did not say— _When you changed, Minho… you were not human_. Jonghyun looks hesitant before his next words, almost terrified as he continues, “Jinki… he knows about that firsthand.”

The hunter feels dismay fill the pit of his stomach, but before he can ask any more questions, Jonghyun decides to leave a few moments later. The werewolf separates from Minho after exchanging contact information, mentioning that he would show up again soon, probably while Onew was sleeping—‘ _He doesn’t remember the real me at all, just thinks I’m some sort of heartless monster_ ,’ Jonghyun had said wretchedly, ‘ _but I did that for myself… I did it for you guys_.’

The hunter desperately wanted to know what those words had meant exactly, but he stopped himself from asking because Jonghyun looked upset enough as it was. _Next time_ , he thinks, _next time for sure_. When he is sure Jonghyun is gone, Minho heads over to the door of his room, almost scared to go back inside what with Jonghyun’s words swirling around in his mind. What did he mean that Jinki knew firsthand? Because once you got a good look, Jonghyun’s scars were no joke; they were invisible to the human eye, but blatantly obvious if you knew that they were marks left behind by a vampire.

The hunter had a sinking feeling in his chest that reminded him that he had seen them on Onew before, but he had never thought to pay much attention. Scars left behind by vampires could go undetectable unless you actively searched for them, and even then it took years of training to learn how to spot the silvery marks, so Minho could not for the life of him remember where exactly he had seen them.

Cautiously pushing open the door of his room, he noticed that Onew was still fast asleep, body curled around Minho’s pillow. The younger crawled into bed next to him, lying on his side as he watched the vampire’s chest rise and fall slowly. Suddenly, Onew’s eyes fluttered open, the drowsy yet sharp crimson orbs locking with Minho’s deep black ones. They stare at each other for a few minutes, an intense silence stretching between them.

Onew is, unsurprisingly, first to speak. “Did I… imagine everything a few hours ago, or—”

Minho cracks a smile, heart expanding in his chest as he snatched away his pillow from Onew’s arms. The vampire squeaks, cheeks flushing red when there is no longer anything to hide behind, but the self-consciousness is unnecessary because the hunter pulls the shorter man into his chest immediately afterwards, holding him tight.

“You didn’t imagine anything,” Minho whispers reassuringly, and he feels Onew’s chin digging into his chest, struggling to look up. Minho loosens his grip, but just enough so Onew’s face can turn up to his before he tightens it again, smiling senselessly down at him. Onew yelps, squirming a bit as he returns the grin; he looks so cute then that Minho cannot help but lean in and kiss him, rolling over so that he lay on top of the vampire, pressing his body down and into the kiss. He feels the elder’s finger curl into the front of his shirt, pulling him impossibly closer, tongues dancing together tentatively, exploring each other’s mouths.

When Minho moves away, Onew bites softly on the younger’s plump lower lip, reluctant to let him go. “Minho,” the vampire whimpers softly when Minho’s lip escapes from between his teeth, the hunter moving down and planting kisses on Onew’s jaw and gradually following a path that went lower. He kissed at the smooth skin of Onew’s neck, licking at the side and the hollow of his throat, before biting at his collarbones. The short gasps the vampire releases are enough to send electric shocks to the hunter’s groin.

He pulls back, Onew’s small whine of protest lost behind a few more kisses to his lips, and Minho studies the man below him. Onew gazes up questioningly, out of breath and starry-eyed. _He looks beautiful_ , Minho thinks, studying the warm crimson eyes, the smooth skin of his cheeks, the rounded cheekbones above them, the sharp jaw… where he spots it. The mark was faint, centuries old for sure, but the scar shaped like vampire fangs dragging against the skin above his jaw bone was there.

In a flash under the bright white moonlight that lit up Onew’s pale skin, as if someone shoved open the floodgates, Minho could see the telltale marks of fangs and claws all over Jinki’s neck and face; they were potentially disfiguring had they not been invisible to the human eye. Minho’s hands are shaking, panic and horror racking his body as he unbuttons the elder’s shirt, tears pricking his eyes when he sees the disturbing marks littering the vampire’s entire chest, painful-looking and deep; that was not all, to Minho’s dismay, because he could see the marks going further down his stomach and continuing down, hidden under the waistband of Onew’s pants.

“Ah, so you see them,” whispers the vampire’s soft, warm voice. Minho does not even know he is crying until Onew’s small hands reach up to cup his cheeks, wiping away the tears as Minho’s gaze focuses on Onew’s. He cannot un-see the scars, could never, and he sobs harder when he is forced to see the disfiguring scars on the vampire’s face again.

But it is not Onew he is looking down at. The expression is familiar in a way that was not Onew, but…

“Shh, Minho,” Jinki coos, thumbs still wiping at the hunter’s tears. “Shh, it’s okay, jagiya. _I’m_ okay.”

“I… I did this, didn’t I?” Minho chokes out. Jinki just looks back at him for a few beats before nodding slowly. At the confirmation Minho is filled with a sudden need to just die, full of loathing for his previous life—how could he do this to the one person he loved more than anything, how could he permanently scar Jinki’s face, his body, _him_?

“There many instances where I nearly died… but Jonghyun was always near. He almost always had to pry you away, keep you from drinking too much blood,” Jinki admitted, looking so terribly sad. He glanced back up into Minho’s teary, dark eyes. “However, these marks were my choice. In a way, they were my punishment for changing you. After you turned… you were unable to forgive yourself when the very humans that your vow as hunter meant to protect, were dying at your hands―”

The elder had to stop speaking to gain control of his trembling fingers, taking in a shuddering breath. His voice is heavy and laced with emotion as he continues, “But you were newly changed, so of course you couldn’t control yourself, couldn’t help but suck them dry. So _I_ offered _myself_ to you as an alternative, and to this day I don’t regret that decision, even if it nearly cost my life on several occasions. Please don’t ever blame yourself Minho; it’s not your fault.”

Jinki’s fingers slid higher into Minho’s hair, threading into the silky dark locks and pulling the taller man’s head closer so that their foreheads connected. He gasped when he felt the hunters larger hands wrap firmly around his wrists, grip tightening as Minho cried, “But how is it _not_ my fault?” His voice was thick and hushed as it caught in his throat, heart throbbing painfully in his chest. _I deserve this pain_ , Minho thinks. _I deserve to feel more than just this_.

The longer he thought about what had happened, the more he detested himself. “I could have lived slaughtering those humans; I would have hated it but at least I had you by my side. But when I started feeding off of you… _hurting_ you, as if you were some sort of _scapegoat―_ ” he said the word with all the bitterness in his body, “―for them, I couldn’t even _live_ with myself. I took my life, Jinki, not because I hated murdering people, even though I really did hate it―I killed myself because I despised what I had _become_ , how I was _killing_ _you_ little by little.”

Those were the words that finally made Jinki cry, the elder sobbing heavily in Minho’s arms as they wrapped around his waist, tugging him closer. The sounds were driving spikes through the hunter’s chest, and he gulped painfully, holding the older man even closer. “God, Jinki, please don’t cry,” Minho begged in a voice barely above a whisper, trying to hold back his own tears and failing miserably as they rolled down his cheeks. “I hate myself for doing this to you, for making you feel this way.”

He moved his head down and kissed the salty tears at the corners of Jinki’s crescent-shaped eyes away. Jinki blinked up at him, looking a little lost again, unable to recall any further; he was Onew again now, but he remembered this heartfelt exchange, could not forget the emotions he felt, and so he was different, still Jinki just without all the memories that made him who he used to be. Even Minho did not understand how he himself knew these feelings―feelings so old but nonetheless so vibrant, so strong. Feelings of a man who lived centuries ago and was able to make the hunter experience even now, so many reincarnations later—

“M-Minho,” Jinki murmured, stuttering yet insistent as he broke Minho’s concentration. “I still love you. I always will.”

Overwhelmed, Minho kissed him again, kissed him until they both could not breathe, kissed him until their sobs were unintelligible between them, mouths and bodies desperate to remain connected.

_I still love you._

Those four words had lasted so long; centuries later, it still made them strong.

 

~~

 

Jinki was all kinds of embarrassed when he woke up hours later, completely naked, an equally bare Minho fast asleep with his arms wrapped around the elder man’s waist. What mortified him was how fast their relationship was escalating, even if they had been lovers in Minho’s previous life. And that was another embarrassment on its own—Jinki was, and always will be, at least half-a-millennia older than Minho, who, in this body, was only twenty-six.

 _It shouldn’t matter_ , Jinki reassured himself, because Minho’s memory was aging quickly to keep up; however he could not help how odd it felt, especially when he himself could not remember much. Jinki looked up wistfully at Minho’s slumbering face, still unable to recall such a big portion of his life before his memories were wiped. So much history and information was lost in the recesses of his mind and he wanted to find them, but it seemed that the hunter was remembering things at a faster rate than he was himself.

Jinki checked the time—two in the morning—meaning he could visit Taemin and be back in three hours, just before sunrise. He was worried about the younger man, especially after Minho hinted that things could go potentially awry with his childhood friend. Minho never got the chance to tell Jinki anything else, and he looked so distraught that the elder did not have it in him to ask.

Of course, Jinki knew that many vampires were coming into Seoul, and if the hunter could not visit the bartender because of his occupation and how it could threaten Taemin’s safety, then it should be significantly better if Jinki did the checking in himself. Even with all those other excuses, Jinki had not seen his good friend in two weeks after all, and Minho’s words had left him unsettled and worried. It was a good idea to make sure Taemin was okay.

The vampire peeked up again at the hunter, gaze drifting over the long, dark lashes, the smooth bridge of his nose, the high cheekbones. He flushed when he could not help but peek a glance down—and who would not?—and let his eyes marvel at the sharp collarbones, the sculpted planes of Minho’s chest, the ridged abs, and the happy trail that led to a delightful place which was currently pressed against his own. Jinki’s eyes snapped back up, blushing furiously when he was unable to force away the memories of just hours earlier from his mind.

Before the thoughts could arouse him, Jinki stretched up his neck to plant a quick peck against Minho’s cheek, a test to see what would happen—the younger did not stir, meaning that Minho was dead asleep, drained after the bout of crying and heavy guilt that still weighed like a boulder on his chest, despite Jinki’s many reassurances.

And, perhaps, the little exercise they were doing earlier could possibly have exhausted him as well, but those were just details.

After a few more minutes of contemplation, Jinki was almost certain Minho would never let him go visit Taemin, at least not alone. And it was not as if they knew anyone else that could accompany him—Key was in England, after all—so this could be his only chance. The more Jinki thought about it, he realized that together, he and Minho made for a rather unsociable couple. The idea pulled a chuckle from him as he slipped out of Minho’s long arms, rolling off the bed stealthily; being a vampire was helpful for escapades of this nature.

He could not help but sneak another peck against Minho’s lips, smiling sweetly at the younger man—while trying not to ogle at his nude form—before finally going to the bathroom and washing up. In the mirror he noticed a trail of hickeys going down his neck, wrinkling his nose in frustration and embarrassment when he realized that none of his shirts he owned could cover the telltale marks.

From the corner of his eye, Jinki spotted Minho’s hoodie, which lay strewn on the floor after he had flung it off earlier, and decided to wear it instead. He combed his fingers through his messy hair, pulling up the hood. He chuckled at his reflection; he thought that he looked a little silly—he never did get used to the twenty-first century fashion—but at least it covered the marks.

He was stumbling through the apartment, yanking on a pair of jeans at the same time he used the microwave to warm up a bucket of stale chicken he had left in the fridge before falling asleep—he was thirsty, but was not really in the mood to hunt. The chicken would keep him sated for a while.

As he waited, his heart thrummed with awe—just twenty-four hours ago he was passed out on the couch, reliving a nightmare that had haunted him ever since he separated from Minho to heal at Key’s place. Now, just a few minutes prior, he woke up naked in Minho’s bed, covered in hickeys and a throbbing pain in his ass that was slowly ebbing away.

The past was a remarkable thing; it changed everything.

 

~~

 

Even while eating, Jinki could recognize the odor of something evil, no matter how subtle the smell.

He scrutinized the building in front of him, glancing at the area around it; it was Taemin’s bar alright. His skin prickled with suspicion, picking up on the faint smell of a demon. It was stale, several days old for sure, and trickling around it was the sharper scent of magic that sparked in the air. Jinki could tell without using his nose that the place was packed with vampires and werewolves tonight; every other creature had fled the premises.

Jinki’s heart throbbed with fear in his chest when he did not smell the familiar human scent that Taemin released, and tossing his tub of chicken in the trash, he pushed open the doors of the bar. Despite the pretty music, loud conversations, and laughter, he was met with a tense atmosphere. Vampires and werewolves had never really gotten along well in the past—mainly because vampires were more hostile than werewolves, who have always played better with humans—but ever since the Covenant had been formed, things were different. It showed in the way that there were intermixed tables, but still it was undeniable that the tension was nearly palpable.

He had been out of the loop far too long—something was obviously going on.

The relief that hit him when his gaze turned to the bar and spotted the familiar brunette bartender drying off glasses was instantaneous; he made a beeline straight to Taemin, nearly colliding with one of the barstools as he scrambled to get on.

“Taemin!” Jinki chortled gleefully, and Taemin looked up, taking a second to process what he was seeing before a large, toothy grin stretched across his face.

“Onew-hyung!” he wailed, and the two hugged clumsily over the counter, not caring when the wood dug into their stomachs. Taemin’s eyes were sparkling with happiness when they pulled apart, a hint of concern feeding into them. “Hyung, I haven’t seen you in forever! Are you feeling better?”

Jinki nodded, beaming widely. “Never been better.”

Taemin hummed in agreement, eyeing the vampire’s neck. “I can see that.”

Immediately Jinki’s hand slapped against his neck, cheeks reddening when he realized that their awkward embrace had knocked his hood down. He hurriedly pulled it back up, wanting to curl up and hide. “Pretend you didn’t see that.”

“Sure, whatever floats your boat, hyung,” the younger sang, “but I always knew that there was something more scandalous going on between the two of you.” His expression became somber as he glanced behind the vampire. “Is… is Minho-hyung with you?”

Jinki shook his head. “No, he’s not.” When Taemin’s face fell, he hurriedly added, “He was worried that if a hunter showed up at your bar, you’d get unwanted attention from the sudden increase in vampires.”

Taemin’s eyes lit up in understanding, and feeling better, he smiled. “Oh. I thought… I thought he was still mad at me.”

Jinki was about to ask for what, when he realized a little late that Taemin no longer smelled human; the sharp smell of magic that stirred the air was actually coming from Taemin. He glanced around the bar, this time _really_ paying attention to what was going on, and his breath caught in his throat—a rag was wiping down an empty table all by itself, chairs pushing themselves in, and empty glasses floated back towards Taemin.

The vampire turned to fix his wide-eyed stare on the bartender. “You _didn’t_.”

Taemin grinned sheepishly. “I did. And hyung practically trashed the place in anger―but I really can’t blame him. Even though I’m happy to have these powers, I do regret selling my soul for them… it was a little rash.”

“A _little_ rash?” Jinki suddenly felt very faint. How was selling his _soul_ only a _little_ rash? Good lord—kids these days.

Taemin noticed Jinki’s lightheadedness and chuckled, pouring him a glass of iced water before handing it to him. “You handled that a lot better than Minho-hyung did.”

Jinki laughed drily—Minho probably had been plenty angry for the both of them—before eyeing the water in front of him. “I’m a vampire, remember?”

Taemin’s lips formed a small ‘o’ as he took away the glass, glancing down at it for a beat before chugging it down himself. “I forget. You don’t act like the others, hyung.”

The vampire wrinkled his nose. “I’ve been here too long, Taemin,” he looked wistful as he spoke. “I’ve seen things. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a nice, warm glass of O negative.” Jinki chuckled at his own joke, but Taemin’s eyes widened in recollection.

“Actually,” the bartender began, leaning down so his head disappeared behind the counter. When he stood straight he had a wineglass full of familiar red liquid in his hand. “My bar recently got licensed by the Covenant. They installed a special freezer in the back and have been sending me blood bags to stock inside.”

Jinki eyed the glass hungrily, mouth drying at the sight. Suddenly he felt parched, like needles were stabbing into his tongue. He had always been good at resisting his urges, but no vampire could help the thirst if the blood was being handed to them. Taemin chuckled, noticing the hesitation, and he offered the glass again. “Take it, hyung. It’s warm.” The elder smiled back, undecidedly reaching for the glass. The stem was cool to the touch, but he could feel the warmth of the thick red liquid sloshing inside.

But before he could press the glass to his lips, a familiar scent wafted over him. His head snapped up and he turned around, eyes wide when he spotted him. Jonghyun was standing at the doorway and their eyes connected; in the brief moment of shock that passed through the both of them, neither breathed. The werewolf stood his ground for a few seconds before turning around and leaving the bar, sprinting into the darkness of the night. Jinki wasted no time, setting the glass down and flickering out of view, bursting through the doors to follow the werewolf.

However, even though vampires were fast, werewolves were faster, and Jonghyun was nowhere to be seen. Werewolves were masters at disguising and replicating scent and Jonghyun was no different—he left no scent trail, at least not one that Jinki could pick up anyway; only another werewolf would be able to decipher the smell.

Jinki cursed loudly; he did not like the fact that Jonghyun was so near Taemin. The werewolf had been killing humans to get his attention and the fact that he even came here meant that he had something planned. Fear pooling in his gut, Jinki headed back inside the bar.

Taemin was staring at him with wide-eyed curiosity as the vampire settled back onto the stool. “What’s wrong?” the bartender asked. Jinki looked at him apologetically—the exchange he and Jonghyun had was faster than any human eye could catch, so the only thing Taemin witnessed was Jinki turning around and disappearing. He wondered for a few seconds what it must be like to live as calm and slow as the humans do.

“Nothing,” he replies, “just someone who’d been giving me trouble for centuries. I hadn’t seen him in a while and he just showed up out of the blue.” The vampire locked his crimson eyes with Taemin’s large brown ones. “Be careful who you talk to, Taemin. Not everyone is like me, remember?”

With those words making the atmosphere more serious, Taemin remembered something he needed to tell Jinki. Glancing around, he leaned closer to the elder. “Hyung,” he began, voice hushed, “a vampire older than you has come into the city. I heard he’s planning something and that’s why there has been an increase in vampire activity here in Seoul.”

The tenseness in Jinki’s shoulders didn’t release for the rest of the night.

 

~~

 

Hands buried deep into his pockets, Jinki left Taemin’s bar two hours later when it closed. It was near four in the morning, more or less, and quite chilly outside. He needed to quench his thirst—he refused the drink Taemin offered because he did not feel comfortable drinking human blood in front of him—and made quick use of a drunk office worker stumbling around in the dark. When the pleasure of Jinki’s bite aroused him, he groped Jinki’s ass, which was still sore from earlier, and the vampire kneed the human’s crotch in response. Jinki let the man fall to floor, passed out as he looked on with disgust. This was why he preferred sober victims.

“That was quite a show,” a deep voice suddenly chuckled from behind him, so close that Jinki was not sure he even heard it. At the sound, a fearful shiver unconsciously ran up Jinki’s spine, but before he could turn around he felt cold hands curling around the back of his neck and slamming his face into the wall. Jinki saw stars dancing around him, could feel his own blood dripping down his forehead. Suddenly a larger body was pressing against his back, frighteningly familiar. Jinki was strong, but his assailant was stronger, and fear rose in his chest when he felt hot breath ghosting his neck.

It was another vampire.

“It’s such a shame that you don’t remember me,” rasped the other vampire, his tongue licking at the side of Jinki’s neck. Jinki whimpered, helpless as he struggled to move. He was disorientated from the collision, and, as it was, completely overpowered.

He screamed when fangs dug deep into neck, could feel the two sharp rows slicing through his skin and draining the blood he had inside him. “Fuck!” he cursed, the pain feeling like daggers dragging across his skin, like his body was trapped in a fire and he was burning alive. “ _Stop_!”

The vampire pulled away, although not because Jinki demanded it, but because he had wanted to. “I don’t like that you’re remembering things, Lee Jinki, and if had the ability, I would wipe your memory clean.” Fear burned in Jinki’s body, tears streaming down his cheeks as he released a whimper—he just reunited with Minho; forgetting everything again would just kill him. “But alas, the memory erasing adaptation was long after my time, so I’ll just let you off with a warning.”

The vampire bit into the back of Jinki’s shoulder, dragging out another a bloodcurdling scream from him as pain so bad it felt like Jinki’s insides were being ripped out nearly made him pass out; he felt blood leaving his body again, could feel the smirk of the lips that pressed against his skin.

Out of nowhere, his assaulter was attacked by someone else, the vampire’s teeth ripping out of Jinki’s body as he was hit on side of his face. “Fuck off,” a familiar voice growled— _Jonghyun_ , Jinki’s mind registered. However, by this point Jinki was going in and out of consciousness, body numbed from the pain and throat dry with thirst. He crumpled on the ground in a heap of blood and limbs, Minho’s hoodie bloody and torn as it hung from his body.

Jonghyun stared where the other vampire had been only moments before, gone before he could get a better look at him. He cursed loudly, rushing over to Jinki who was bleeding out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the werewolf cried, repeating the expletive over and over as he picked up the vampire and sprinted back to Taemin’s bar, slamming his fist on the door. He prayed that the bartender was still there even though it had already been half an hour since it closed—Jonghyun had no idea where the blood vault was, what with the strong scent of alcohol and blood mixed together throughout the bar.

He was lucky when the door opened almost immediately, Taemin’s eyes widening happily when he saw the werewolf. “Jjong!” he said with a grin, but then he noticed Jinki bleeding out in his arms and his eyes widened in horror. “ _Onew-hyung_?!”

They lay the vampire out on one of the tables, his blood leaking onto the surface and dripping off the side. “What happened?” the younger man cried, hands shaking as he felt for Jinki’s depleting heart rate.

“Attacked―he needs blood,” Jonghyun tells him through tears that threatened to fall, “and he needs a lot of it so he can regenerate. He’s lost so much, _fuck_.”

Taemin nodded, still shaky when he came back with his arms loaded with cold bags of blood. As they tried to stop the bleeding, he looked over at the werewolf, eyes round and fearful. “This is a bite from another vampire, Jjong—there is no way he’ll heal fast enough to make it alive.”

Jonghyun bit his lower lip painfully, hands trembling alongside Taemin’s as he pressed the bag to Jinki’s mouth; the vampire was unresponsive. It had been too long since he last did this, but this much was worse than any wound Jinki had gotten before, the sturdy venom of an ancient vampire destroying him slowly from the inside out.

“We need Kibum.”


	4. Chapter 4

_[Centuries earlier]_

 

_“Minho,” Jinki whispered, voice hushed as he pressed the hunter against the brick wall of the alley. “He’s following us again.” The taller man glanced up and, sure enough, his cousin was watching them from a good distance away; he did not look at all ashamed to be caught observing them so carefully, and completely used to this, Minho chuckled instead._

_“Jinki,” he murmured back softly against the elder’s ear, hands gripping the vampire’s waist tightly in reassurance, “he’s always been like that. It’s nothing new.” Seunghyun had followed Minho around even when the younger man was a small child, constantly a threatening presence rather than a comforting one, but Minho had always chosen to ignore it—family meant a lot to vampire hunters, meant more than animosity or differences, so he never took a moment to notice the danger lurking in the older hunter’s dark eyes._

_At the time, he did not realize what a horrible decision it had been to disregard Seunghyun like that; his young mind had been too distracted by Jinki’s sweet smell, plump lips, and soft frame. Seunghyun was not who everyone thought he was—a loyal vampire hunter bound by the book to his duty of protecting humankind—but Minho would not find this out until it was too late, until Seunghyun’s arm had him impaled straight through his chest._

_Jinki was vainly shrieking expletives because Seunghyun was gone as soon as he had appeared, never to be seen again―“_ Sweet dreams _,” he had hissed in Minho’s ear as the young hunter choked on his own blood, noticing for the first time the red staining the older hunter’s irises. Minho, to this day, could not recall for the life of him what exactly Seunghyun had wanted, what he had gained when Minho bled crimson onto his arm, the vibrant red of his blood pooling in the snow at his feet._

_He had to have known that Jinki would turn Minho into a vampire and that Minho would end up killing himself anyway after changing, or else Seunghyun would have returned to finish the job―never leaving anything incomplete was a Choi family trademark; everyone knew that._

_And yet―_

_Minho had been too naïve._

_“Oh god,” Jinki whimpered, pressing down against the gaping hole where Minho’s sternum should have been; Minho knew Jinki didn’t believe in a god, didn’t believe in a higher deity that protected them―_ I really must be dying _, Minho thought,_ for Jinki to be this desperate _._

_The snow seeped into his clothes as Minho stared up into Jinki’s eyes, cold numbing the throbbing pain in his chest. Being an immortal gave him unimaginable strength, as did being a hunter, and yet it wasn’t enough to save him from a wound as severe as this―it could only keep him conscious, keep him from slipping away as he felt the life drain from his body._

So this is what it felt like to die.

_All he can see is Jinki, the soft curve of his parted lips as sobs spill from them, tears streaking down his cheeks and mixing with the blood pouring from his mouth and dripping down his chin. Minho barely has a moment to register what Jinki was about to do, what he had done, before the vampire whispers:_

_“I’m so sorry―”_

_The next thing Minho knows, Jinki’s fangs were sinking into his throat, the blood in his veins slowly being replaced by the vampire blood oozing from lacerations on the elder’s tongue. It’s a painful experience, like he’s being ripped apart from the inside out, and he screamed at the top of his lungs, the sound so piercing in the dead silence of the night that it was frighteningly eerie for even him._

_“You’ll be okay, Minho. I love you.”_

 

 

_“I’m so fucking selfish, Jjong,” Jinki cried, paralyzed from the neck down. “I fucked up so bad.”_

_Jonghyun was holding back tears, unable to even look at the bloody mess lying on the ground in front of him. Minho lay passed out a few feet away where Jonghyun had thrown him, clothes stained red―the culprit._

_“Shut up Jinx,” the werewolf grumbled, hands shaking as he wipes the blood from Jinki’s body. It’s painful watching the one you love get hurt, the punctures on the vampire’s sallow skin swelling and oozing blood. “You did it to keep him alive.” He didn’t mention how keeping Minho alive was killing Jinki. He didn’t mention how slowly the wounds were healing compared to last time, and the time before that, and even before that. He didn’t mention that they looked infected. He didn’t mention that Jinki’s eyes had sunken so far back into his skull that he didn’t even look alive anymore._

_Not that Jinki had been particularly alive since the incident._

_When Minho reawakened, he’d slaughtered twenty-three people―new vampires couldn’t control the venom in their fangs, so every bite was deadly. Jinki had to do away with six more who were witnesses and Minho had practically devoured them whole because the hunger was insatiable. Jonghyun had heard about new vampires killing off entire villages, but never before had he witnessed it with his own eyes. New vampires were hard to come by, and they were just lucky that they still lived in a time where news traveled slowly and rumors dominated._

_But every time Minho regained his senses, he turned on himself. The scars on his body from where his claws had dug into them had healed immediately. Newer vampires weren’t human―they were monsters―and Minho hated it._

_“No, I did it because I couldn’t live without him, Jjong. I did it because if Minho had died, I wouldn’t be alive either,” Jinki sobbed, the alarming confession breaking Jonghyun from his trance just before the vampire let out a blood curdling shriek as another one of the lesions in his skin sizzles and heals._

_“Fuck,” Jonghyun hissed, unable to stop the tears as he held the vampire’s body down when it started to convulse, the sounds of bones cracking into place almost as sickening as the steam releasing from his body as he healed, the dead skin bubbling and peeling off to leave a mess on the grass as Jinki’s back bowed off the ground. He screamed again and the tears that streamed out of Jinki’s eyes as he tries to curl into himself are red._

_He was weeping blood._

_“It hurts!” Jinki wailed, twisting his burning body. “Jjong, please,_ make it stop _!”_

 _Jonghyun couldn’t breathe. “_ Fuck _, Jinki, I―”_

_He screamed again._

 

 

_“I really fucking hate you,” Jonghyun growled without any real anger, rubbing the slowly healing welts on his arms. Werewolves may recover from wounds quickly, but vampire bites filled with venom took decades to restore, and even then they left silvery scars that would last forever._

_“I’m sorry,” Minho amended, unable to look his friend in the eye, “I wasn’t exactly myself.”_

_He hadn’t been able to look anyone in the eyes since he had changed over half a year ago, especially Jinki―the guilt of what he had done, what he was_ still _doing on a weekly basis, sometimes even more, tore him apart. But Jinki wouldn’t let him look away; Jinki held Minho’s head close to his and locked their gazes, so Minho had no choice but to behold what he had done, staring down at the array of scars and scabbed over incisions marring Jinki’s beautiful face and body._

_His intent in doing this wasn’t to make the younger man repent, but to prove to him that he was still loved. But the guilt was still there._

_“I know,” the werewolf said, resting a hand on Minho’s shoulder. “I know, so stop looking like that.”_

_Minho looked up, surprised. “Like what?”_

_Raising an eyebrow, Jonghyun replied, “Like you’re dying. Jinki is doing this to keep you alive. Hell, even I’m doing this to keep you alive. We’ve been best friends for decades―I’ll do anything for you.”_

_“That’s what I’m afraid of.”_

_Minho had to be one of the first immortals to ever become a vampire―both him and Seunghyun, who Minho hadn’t seen a sliver of since the murder attempt. He’d spent countless mornings lying awake next to a fast-asleep Jinki, thinking about what the hell the elder hunter had gained, if he knew that Jinki had turned him into a vampire and saved his life. Minho wondered when Seunghyun had turned into a vampire himself, if the change was recent or if it had happened centuries ago._

_The immortal blood still in his body made Minho more powerful than the average vampire, more ravenous, yet it also kept him painfully sober when the vampire part of his body took over. He had nightmares where everything was black and all he could hear was Jinki’s screeching as the smaller vampire healed himself. Minho couldn’t pretend when he bed Jinki every night that he didn’t see how thin he’d become, practically skin on bones, ribs poking painfully against poorly healed skin. The softness of Jinki’s body was gone and it had taken all of its comforts with it, so that every time the elder spread his legs to make room for him, Minho could feel the bones press against his healthier figure._

_Jinki was dying and Minho was the parasite._

_He couldn’t live with himself, not when it was like this._

 

 

_Minho was dead._

_Jonghyun was having trouble breathing again, the blockage in his chest completely psychological. Now he finally understood what the hunter had meant when he’d said ‘Take good care of Jinki.’_

_Minho had always known that Jonghyun loved Jinki because it never had been a secret; Minho met Jinki first and then introduced him to Jonghyun. Jonghyun had been so surprised at the time that his vampire-hating friend actually befriended a vampire, but when Jinki had smiled at him, crescent-shaped eyes crinkling and pink lips curving into a sunshine smile… Jonghyun was a goner, and by that smirk on Minho’s face, the hunter had him figured out immediately._

_Jinki used to be so different. Before Minho became a vampire, Jinki was cocky bastard. He knew how attractive he was, he knew what to say, what to do. Jinki was the type of guy that could make you swoon, and the unraveling sexual tension between him and Minho was like watching to two male peacocks circle around each other as they tried to out-do the other. It didn’t mean Jonghyun hadn’t tried. The three of them were friends for years, Jonghyun and Minho both trying to sway Jinki in their direction, before the bed Jinki finally decided to spoon in was Minho’s._

_Jonghyun had given up then because he saw the way they looked at each other; he only hoped that he would find something like that later in life. He never quite fell out of love though―even now―and Minho must have known because he was practically giving Jinki to him. But that wasn’t his choice to make. Jonghyun wasn’t going to be a replacement, not when he knew that the only person Jinki would ever love was Minho. What he hadn’t counted on was Jinki not remembering anything; Minho had wiped the older vampire’s memories clean before he died._

_And the werewolf had truly considered taking the opening Minho had given him, as he approached Jinki―it was Onew, now―like it was the first time they’d ever met, but then―_

_“I’m looking for someone with really sad eyes. He was here last night and I can’t help but feel like I need to find him.”_

_So Jonghyun did what any best friend would have done._

_“I know where he is,” he murmured, swallowing thickly. “But I won’t tell you.”_

_Jonghyun counted his lucky stars that the cover of the night hid the tears that he desperately blinked away._

 

 

_Kibum met Onew on accident._

_He had always been good at reading people, more perceptive than the average predator, and he found the older vampire walking into the alleyway behind Kibum’s restaurant looking hopelessly lost in the middle of one of the busiest cities in China―Beijing._

_With one glance he could tell Onew was a vampire like him, and another look at his face let him know that he was not looking for any trouble. “Hey, you’re Korean, aren’t you?”_

_Startled, Onew rested his gaze on him, eyes wide before he relaxed at the sight of the younger man’s smile. Onew understood that he was a vampire too, and nodded warily in response._

_“Same here―I’m Kibum, but I prefer to go by Key.” Onew finally smiled back at him, his dark brown hair brushing over the tops of his lashes. Onew smiled like he was perplexed by something, as if he was cracked without a clue why, and Kibum thought he’s beautiful. “Anything I can help you with?” the younger asked._

_Onew simply shook his head, smile growing endlessly wider yet somehow sadder at the same time. “No. I’m just looking for someone that I’m not even sure exists.”_

_Kibum fell in love with the way Onew laughed as if he had nothing to hide, with bright eyes that smile at him from the depths of his heart. Inversely, Kibum hated the way Jonghyun was the complete opposite. He hated the way the werewolf approached Onew with something akin to regret and determination on his face as he pretended to be someone he was not. Kibum can see right through his façade―he’s hiding something, and it wasn’t the mystery man with the sad eyes Onew was searching for._

_Decades later, when Kibum and Onew had been dating for nearly half a century, he followed Jonghyun home one night. “Who the hell is this guy?” he finally demanded. “And why the fuck won’t you just_ tell _him where he is?” Kibum can’t help but feel like he should have asked the question years ago because Onew at times looks so despairingly miserable that it broke Kibum’s heart. Whoever this man was, he must have been someone important. The depressive effects of Onew’s fruitless search finally started to take its toll on the elder vampire physically as the years flew by and he became more and more vulnerably human._

_The werewolf looked over his shoulder with surprisingly exhausted eyes―probably the most honest expression Kibum had ever seen on the werewolf since they’d met. Jonghyun just smiled at him, a sad, wistful smile, before turning away._

_“It’s a long story. You wouldn’t understand.”_

_Kibum grabbed his arm, pulling harshly. “Then make me understand.”_

_Jonghyun’s eyes searched Kibum’s and they found nothing but sincerity._

_“Then this is a secret you must take to your grave.”_

 

 

_Jonghyun didn’t realize how much the story effected Kibum. The young vampire hung low for another fifty years, staying by Jinki’s side as a support beam, before breaking up with him and disappearing without another word. The werewolf didn’t suspect a thing, continuing to send Jinki on wild goose chases all over the world, directing him far away from any of Minho’s reincarnations or ancestors like he planned to do for the rest of his life._

_It took Kibum almost two hundred years, but he found a child by the name of Choi Minho born in a hunter house. He watched him grow and become a man, learning to slay vampires and hate them._

_“He’s mortal,” Jonghyun argued when Kibum showed him. Kibum couldn’t help but notice the way Jonghyun looked at Minho fondly, tears forming in his eyes as he tried not to cry. “But it is him.”_

_“Then let them meet.”_

_Jonghyun shook his head vehemently. “He’s human. He’ll die eventually and then what? Jinki’s heart will just break every time one of Minho’s reincarnations die―it’ll kill him because then he’ll have to start all over.” Jonghyun looked so apprehensive that Kibum wondered how the hell he could have ever thought that the werewolf hated Jinki. “I can’t… no, I_ won’t _do that to him.”_

_He looked at Kibum then because it’s been years and they knew each other too well. “And neither will you.”_

_Kibum looked away from the intensity of the werewolf’s gaze, but he promised nothing._

 

~~

 

“I t-think a friend of mine knows a healer who can be here right now,” Taemin stammered out once Jonghyun got off the phone with Key, the elder man running fingers through his hair as Jinki’s life literally bled out onto the table. They’ve stanched the flow of blood as much as they could, but it wasn’t enough. Even though Jinki was a vampire, his body wasn’t self-healing at all, and Jonghyun felt a sense of desperation burn his heart at the familiar feeling. Despite the fact that Jinki had reunited with Minho months ago, if his body was still too weak to heal a poisonous vampire bite, then it meant that a year ago this same attack could have killed the older man―and at least Jinki was fighting back right now; Jonghyun could see the skin on his back beginning to sizzle.

“Then call him,” Jonghyun replied, taking Taemin’s bloodied hand in his and giving it a reassuring squeeze. Taemin nodded, taking out his cellphone and dialing a number. Someone on the other line picked up and Taemin’s grip tightened around Jonghyun’s fingers.

“J-Jongin,” he said carefully, worry edging his voice, “my vampire friend is bleeding out in my bar and I really need your help―didn’t you say that your boyfriend was a healer or something?”

Within minutes of the call, the sound of a loud crack rings in the air and added to the sharp tangy smell of magic permeating the atmosphere that Taemin already gave off in waves. A familiar face appeared from the black smoke―familiar because he looked a lot like Taemin, hair dyed blonde with sleepy eyes, tanned skin, and poufy lips―along with a foreign man held securely in his arms, pale skinned with his dark curly fringe falling over gentle eyes.

The couple looked disheveled, dressed in sleeveless shirts with collars much too low for the cold weather of Seoul. “We were in Australia,” Jongin, the Taemin look-alike, explained. “I’m Kim Jongin and this is Zhang Yixing, my boyfriend. He specializes in healing.” Yixing bows at the mention of his name, offering Taemin and Jonghyun a small smile. “He is one of the best healers in China. He doesn’t speak much Korean so you’ll have to communicate through me if you don’t know Mandarin.”

The four of them crowded around Jinki’s bleeding body. “Vampire venom,” Yixing murmured as he leans in close to the wounds on Jinki’s back. “Not easy.”

“But can you do anything to help?” Jonghyun asked in Korean despite his ability to speak fluent Mandarin, apprehension twisting his gut. Even if Key ran from England, it would take at least forty minutes or so for him to get here, and those forty minutes could mean life or death for Jinki.

Jongin turned to Yixing and translated in rapid Mandarin and Yixing nods, smile wary. “I can try.” Holding his hands out close to the wounds, Yixing’s fingers began to emit an otherworldly white light. Jonghyun could tell just by just the smell of him that the Chinese man wasn’t a mage like Jongin or a sorcerer like Taemin; no magician could heal wounds that severe in the five minutes that it took him to mend torn muscle and remove the venom―this was the work of something blessed, and Yixing was hiding his inhuman smell so well and with such practiced ease that Jonghyun chose not to mention this fact in case the other two weren’t aware of the otherworldly creature.

At Yixing’s touch, Jinki’s wounds began to sizzle and burn loudly, steam emitting from his skin. The second the vampire’s eyes burst open, irises glowing red, Jonghyun knew that everyone needed to get away, _now_. “Get back!” he yelled, pushing Taemin and Yixing away. Jongin pulled Yixing close to him and took a few steps back, meanwhile Taemin stumbled into a chair behind him just before Jinki’s body convulsed and he let out a blood-curdling scream. Jonghyun pinned Jinki down to the table with such force that it breaks from under them, laying a splintered mess on the floor while Jinki healed himself.

“Blood,” the vampire whimpered, shuddering violently as the still-unhealed skin and muscle on his back beings to bubble, body working it’s hardest to reject the rest of the vampire poison burning through his system. “I need― _my throat is on fire_.”

Taemin rushed close with a back with a blood bag in his hands and Jinki’s body jerked towards the sorcerer instead, but Jonghyun held him down. “Fuck, Taemin, stay back. He’s not in his right mind.”

“Just let me feed him this,” Taemin offered, but when he pushes the bag close, Jinki shows no response, snarling as he struggled to reach for the bartender.

“He needs fresh blood,” Jonghyun growled, shoving the bag away. “I’ve done this before, but it’s been a while. You need to back away just in case this gets out of hand.” Taemin stared apprehensively at him, but then he nodded in agreement, halfheartedly joining Jongin and Yixing where they were huddled in a corner.

Jonghyun pushed back his full sleeves to bring his wrist close to Jinki’s face, the blood thrumming through his veins racing fast and hot. In the light of dawn pouring through the windows, Jonghyun can see the scars littering his arms and wrists from centuries ago from when Minho used to fight him. Although Jonghyun knew firsthand how painful a vampire bite could potentially be―especially with unrepressed venom―it would be worth it if it kept Jinki alive; everything was worth it if it meant that Jinki could live longer.

However, when Jinki sank his fangs into the flesh and Jonghyun let out a sharp cry as the venom was injected into his body, an unfamiliar feeling ignited the blood in his veins―like liquid gold thrumming through him. It didn’t hurt, not in the least, and he was trembling despite the strong grip he still had on Jinki because of how the odd sensation was making him feel extraordinarily giddy. Blood drains slowly from Jonghyun’s body and his muscles relax from the loss, which was right when Jinki suddenly surged up and throws Jonghyun off of his hips, the werewolf flinging back and denting the far wall. He groans from the impact, body throbbing as he healed surprisingly faster than he’d ever done before; Taemin mistakes the contorted expression on his face for pain and yells with panic.

Unfortunately, the sound catches Jinki’s attention and he eyes the three men in the corner―a ready meal―and just as he rushed towards them, someone else tackles him from behind.

 _Key_.

“Jinki,” hissed the feline man, restraining Jinki to the floor; the elder was still weak from his wounds and couldn’t put up much of a struggle against a healthier vampire. “Jinki, I want you to calm the fuck down so I can heal you.” He shot a glance over at Jonghyun worriedly but the werewolf just shook his head at the concern he showed.

“I’m okay,” he assured him, getting up on shaky legs and heading towards the other two. He had no clue what the hell he’d just experienced because it didn’t make sense for Jinki’s venom to make him feel somehow… _stronger_. “I’ll hold him down while you heal.” Key nodded, although he still watched Jonghyun anxiously as the elder pressed Jinki to the floor. The second Jonghyun has a good enough grip on the injured vampire, Key began to lick the sizzling wounds on Jinki’s back even as Jinki shrieked bloody murder, body twisting underneath the other two.

Jonghyun decided to ignore the strange phenomenon for in now in favor of relaxing knowing that everything would be fine now that Key was here; Jonghyun released a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding as Jinki whined underneath their weight. Key looked up with blood-stained lips for a second to ask:

“Hey, where’s the tall guy?”

 

~~

 

_“You’ll be okay, Minho-ah. I love you.”_

 

The hunter gasped awake at five in the morning with visions of intense red staining the backs of his eyelids, heart pounding painfully loud in his chest as he jerks up to a seated position. He clutched at his chest, breathing deeply through his nose as if he would find a gaping hole in the place of his sternum. Minho glanced over to Jinki―if only to find peace of mind and maybe take some comfort in his serene sleeping face―but instead his stomach sank dangerously to the ground when he found the bed empty next to him.

“Jinki?” he called unsteadily, still shaken from the memory-cum-nightmare, and stumbled to his feet. The floor was ice cold and anxiety curled his toes when he looked around the bedroom and found one of his hoodies missing, as well as Jinki’s jeans. Perhaps they’d gone to fast? Although Minho remembered everything with a renewed vigor, it didn’t mean that Jinki felt the same quite yet.

He dressed quickly, pulling on jeans and a t-shirt before grabbing his jacket just in case, and walked into the living room to check the couch. His chest tightened when he finds the couch vacant as well, but then he felt a cool draft and he turned quickly towards the source: the kitchen. The refrigerator door was wide open―Jinki still wasn’t used certain machines since he’d never had to use them before, and often times he would forget to do the smallest things when other matters were preoccupying his mind. Minho didn’t fail to note that the only thing missing was Jinki’s tub of chicken and he relaxed a little because Jinki wouldn’t have thought about the chicken if he was uncomfortable being in Minho’s presence.

He’s just about to relax and maybe go back to sleep when suddenly there was a hesitant knock on his door and he turned towards it suspiciously. Although he’d loosened the seals to allow Jinki, Key, and Jonghyun inside, none of them ever knocked―Key usually strutted in like he owned the place, and Jonghyun didn’t even bother with the door, slipping in unnoticed through the window. Jinki didn’t need to knock because he was constantly glued to Minho’s side.

Without a sound he walked towards the door, just about to look through the peephole when the person outside knocked again, this time more desperately. “Minho,” a familiar voice sounded from the other side, “Minho, it’s me, Taemin. I know you’re usually asleep right now but Onew hyung is in trouble.”

At the sound of Jinki’s pseudonym, Minho flung open the door to find a rather disheveled Taemin covered in blood. Minho’s heart stopped, rushing forward to check the younger man for the source of the wounds. “ _Oh my g_ ―”

“It’s not mine,” Taemin hurriedly enlightened him, swatting away Minho’s worrying hands so he could grab his arm and tug him towards the stairs. “It’s hyung’s. He was attacked by a vampire outside of my bar, but Jonghyun protected him. I had a healer mend what he could before Key-hyung ran here from England to repair the rest of the damage.”

Minho could barely hear anything over the blood pounding ferociously loud in his ears, mind unable to register that he’d been completely oblivious to the world when Jinki had been attacked and was fighting for his life―it explained the wicked visions plaguing his sleep. Twenty minutes later Minho was bursting through the bar entrance to find Jinki lying on the floor, eyes fixated on the ceiling as Key lectured him. Jonghyun was also surprisingly still here and there are two more strangers, one of which the werewolf is speaking to in a hushed voice while the Taemin-lookalike watches on from a distance. Minho tried to hear what they’re saying as he runs towards Jinki but realized quickly that they were conversing in Mandarin, remembering offhandedly that Jonghyun, Jinki, and Kibum had all spent quite a lot of time in China.

“Jinki!” Minho nearly shouted, sliding to his knees as he landed near the injured vampire.

Startled, Jinki attempted to sit straight, but winced when he can’t. “Minho,” he croaked out, eyes watering as he tried to look up at the hunter. “I’m so sorry for leaving without telling you, but―”

“Shut up, you dumbass,” Minho muttered, running his fingers through Jinki’s hair, dirt sticking vehemently to the reddish-brown strands. He pressed a soft kiss to the elder’s forehead and lips before speaking. “Just rest for now―I’ll yell at you when you don’t look like shit.” Jinki laughed at that, grimacing when pain shoots down his back. Minho cringed with him before looking towards Key; the feline vampire no longer had blonde hair or electric blue bangs, hair now a charcoal black with his cat-like eyes lined darkly with kohl, makeup smudged from dried tears that streak down his cheeks. “How bad is it?”

“Well, it really could have been much worse,” Key sniffled indignantly, “if that unicorn over there hadn’t healed your dumbass first.”

Eyebrows rising, Minho turned to glance at the Chinese man the werewolf was still speaking to quietly. “Unicorn?” he asked. “But why would a creature like that help a vampire? Vampires are practically the reason they’re all nearly extinct.” If Minho remembered correctly, there are only a dozen or so left in the world.

“Yeah, I’m not so sure myself. Apparently Taemin knew his boyfriend, and they’re pretty close. I personally thought that the unicorn was a healing mage, but after one whiff Jonghyun told me otherwise.” Key eyed the unicorn, who’s smiling brightly at something Jonghyun had said, before fixing his gaze back on Minho. “He’s so pretty and sweet. And unicorns smell a lot nicer than I last remembered….”

Minho gave the feline vampire a warning look. “No matter how tasty he smells, don’t you _dare_ do anything―he just saved Jinki’s life.”

Key simply shrugged, smiling dangerously. “That’s really the only reason I haven’t done anything. But good lord, he smells _great_.”

The hunter didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry before he looked back down at Jinki. He hadn’t even realized that the injured vampire had taken his hand in his, short fingers threading tightly with Minho’s longer ones. There was sweat on his brow and his sharp teeth were digging painfully into his lower lip. Minho brushed his thumb over the abused flesh, pulling it free.

Jinki opened one eye to stare at him, looking surprised. “What?”

“You’ll hurt yourself.”

They smiled at each other for a few seconds before the moment was broken by Key’s fake retching. “You guys are so gross. You make lonely people like me feel even lonelier,” he tells them, and Jinki laughs again. Minho relaxed considerably when he noted that the elder man didn’t flinch in discomfort from the movement. The hunter was about to say something in response when suddenly Jonghyun was looming over them, and the injured vampire’s laugh died in his throat as they stared at each other with intensity that both Key and Minho can practically feel, tension crackling between them.

“Why did you help me?” Jinki asked, and the mistrust in his voice hurt even Minho. “You’ve never done it before.”

“I have reasons,” Jonghyun replied similarly, except now the hunter can feel the emotion the werewolf was holding back, nearly undetectable, but the pain was there. “But I know why you’re being targeted and I think you need to tell Minho before something really bad happens.”

Jinki swallowed thickly at the accusation and Minho was stunned when the vampire didn’t deny this. Jinki looked at the ground where their hands were entwined and reluctantly admitted, “I don’t quite understand that part about me myself because I still don’t remember much.”

“Then let me explain,” Jonghyun said, before looking at Minho. There was an inexplicable panic in his eyes that made the hunter’s heart race in dismay. “I thought it was strange when Jinki’s venom didn’t hurt like I was expecting it to… but what made me really suspicious was the power I got from it. _Watch_ ―”

In a flash, Jonghyun had Key pinned to the ground by the neck. To the human eye the movement was instantaneous, but when your eyes were accustomed to high-speed actions like Minho’s you would observe that in that one second fight, Key had landed five punches to Jonghyun’s abdomen and one to the left side of his head before Jonghyun twisted their bodies and knocked the air right out of the vampire’s lungs to finally have them in their concluding position, the werewolf’s hand around the younger man’s throat as Key hisses up at him in disbelief.

The hold was strong enough to choke but vampires don’t breathe so the danger is lost on him; nevertheless, Jinki still tried to jump up to the other’s aid before Key kicked Jonghyun off easily. “Normally I would never be able to win, no matter how off-guard Kibu―Key is,” Jonghyun said, a little breathless from their fast-paced scuffle, “because he is one of the only vampires faster than any werewolves I have ever met.”

“It’s true,” Key murmured, rubbing his sore neck as the bruises in the shape of Jonghyun’s fingers slowly disappeared, “this is the first time that he’s ever won.”

“Wait, you guys know each other well enough to spar?” Jinki cut in with shock written all over his face, looking from the vampire and werewolf like he’d been missing something. _In a way, he actually has_ , Minho thought sadly. “He even called you Kibum on accident. You don’t let anyone call you that except for your mother.”

Key had the mindfulness to look uncomfortable, but Jonghyun was already speaking. “We’ll talk about that another time, when you’re ready,” he said dismissively, before locking eyes with older man. “What is more important right now is why haven’t you told any of us that you were born a half-angel?”

 

~~

 

_[flashback]_

 

Minho had no readings on this new vampire, and that was discouraging as it was. There was something different about this vampire, something special about the way his skin was practically glowing in the moonlight, the way he looked almost ethereal simply standing there.

 

Onew was beyond listening to Minho as he leaned down and rasped his tongue along Key’s teeth marks. Minho could feel himself regaining strength, finally able to feel his arms and legs as an indescribable energy surges through them―likely aftereffects of the healing.

 

The hunter had been avoiding looking at the vampire’s face because he had a misleadingly innocent appearance, his crescent-shaped eyes gentle and compassionate despite their sinister color, resting over a charming hooked nose, and plush, fat pink lips that stretched wide when he smiled. He was oddly...  _cute_ , and it unnerved Minho more than he liked to admit because of how easy it could be to trust Onew judging simply by appearances.

 

Onew pressed the woman firmly against the wall of an alleyway with his body, sharp rows of pointed teeth sunken into her pale throat. It was the first time he heard a  _human_  moaning while being bitten—and, good god, was she moaning  _loudly_. Generally, the experience was terrifying and agonizing, and Minho would know.

“I just have self-control. New vampires do not. The answer is really that simple.”

 

It was amazing how quickly Onew adapted to being in the constant presence of holy water. It seemed that so long as he was regularly fed, he could fight the sickness and nausea that overcame him around the water.

 

Minho cannot resist the urge to stand up and hug the older man into his body, holding him tightly around the shoulders for what seemed like forever yet no time at all, just inhaling in the familiar blessedly sweet smell that only Onew had. The piling stress that had been building up for the past few days disappears instantaneously, leaving Minho feeling much calmer.

 

_“I’ll have you know,” Jinki counters, a slightly hurt tone feeding into his voice, “that I’m not like other vampires.”_

 

“These marks were my choice. In a way, they were my punishment for changing you.”

 

 _“No_ normal _vampire can turn a vampire hunter into one of us,” Seunghyun cackled as Jinki lunged towards him, easily dodging the attack as he shoved the smaller vampire into the red snow, where Minho lay bleeding to death. “But I happen to know that the little secret side of you_ can _. So why don’t you give it shot, hmm?”_

_He’s gone before Jinki can say anything else._

 

 

_“You’ll be okay, Minho. I love you.”_

 

~~

 

“Your mother was an angel,” Minho was saying, pacing the length of his apartment as Jinki looked on from the couch, all bandaged up and chewing on his lower lip again. “The fact that you’re even a vampire is impossible. Only a really powerful vampire could have changed you, and even then they must have known what they were getting to because killing the child of an angel gives you five hundred years in hell.”

“And vampires are basically dead,” Jinki supplies.

Minho gave him a wry smile. “Why didn’t you tell me this before? You’ve never told anyone.”

“I…” Jinki felt guilt prickle the back of his neck when an answer didn’t come to him as immediately as he would have liked. “I didn’t think it was important.”

“You’re practically _royalty_ ,” Minho deadpanned, sitting next to the older man. “I’m surprised the Covenant hasn’t caught scent of this.”

The vampire gave a dry laugh before confessing, “Actually… about three hundred or so years ago, Yunho, Jeongsu, Taeyeon, Qian, and Joonmyeon all approached me to join as a superior, but I declined. The Kingpin himself came afterwards to ask me in person, but I had already made up my mind. I didn’t want to be involved with any of that.”

Minho can barely contain his shock. “ _Sooman came to see you_?”

Jinki offered a small smile. “Shocked?”

The hunter remained silent. “This is a really big deal.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Or anyone, for that matter,” Jinki mumbled, deflating.

“You don’t understand,” Minho begins, giving the elder a pointed look before squeezing his hand. “Seunghyun, the hunter who tried to kill me all those years ago, and just recently gave you a warning by leaving you within an inch of your life, is after your power. He’s plotting something, which explains why he hasn’t done anything more just yet.”

Jinki eyes widened. “You really think so?”

Nodding, Minho adds, “I think when he tried to kill me back then, it was to test you. He wanted to see if you could actually transform a hunter into a vampire. And when it worked, he started planning. After I died, my brother definitely reported him to the covenant. It explains Seunghyun’s inactivity for the past four hundred years because he was _in prison_.” The hunter gave the smaller man a good, hard look. “I was never the target to begin with. He’s always been after you.”

Still processing the new information, Jinki asked, “So what do we do now?”

Minho’s grip grew tighter, and Jinki threaded their fingers together once more.

“We find out what he wants.”

 

~~

 

Jiyong wonders inadvertently if he was going to die; he’d tried to get a read on his own future earlier that day, but nothing came up because he had to actually _do_ something for there to be a consequence. Seunghyun may claim to love him, but Jiyong didn’t think the vampire loved him enough not to kill him for revealing everything―but he thinks he’d rather die than only own a fraction Seunghyun’s heart anyway.

The world would owe him a favor after this, but he probably won’t be alive to receive one.

“He needs the angel’s venom,” Jiyong discloses offhandedly, shifting in the uncomfortable seat and feeling somewhat exposed in the small café near his apartment. He feels surprisingly calm for someone who just signed their death wish.

“But Jinki is a half-angel,” Jonghyun corrects, although all the blood in his face has withdrawn from panic. He’s sitting down across from the elder, but his trembling hands betray his fear. Jiyong wonders if it was a good idea meeting the other werewolf in public like this, where anyone around them could be one of Seunghyun’s henchmen. The ex-hunter would find out immediately what Jiyong has done and then it would be all over for him.

Jiyong rolls his eyes at the younger werewolf’s useless detail. “That’s beside the point―Seunghyun knows that the half-angel venom make him stronger. If he slowly drinks Jinki’s blood and drains his venom, over time he will become the most powerful being on Earth. He plans to use that power to unveil the supernatural world to the humans, and then take over.”

Jonghyun takes a minute to respond but Jiyong doesn’t blame him; this kind of thing was a lot to digest. He watches the younger man swallow before asking, “And remind me again how you know this?”

Laughing, Jiyong’s eyes crinkle as he takes a sip of the cooling coffee in front of him. “I’m fucking the guy, of course I would know.”

The other man just looks even more stunned. “So then why are you telling me this?”

Jiyong simply shrugs, smiling sadly down at the mug in his hands. He remembers the stories Jonghyun would tell him with a twinkle in his eyes about Jinki and Minho and the irresponsible things the three of them did that day. He thinks about those nights Jonghyun has spent with him over the centuries, needing to be comforted as he cries over losing his best friend and being despised by the man that he loved. Jiyong wishes that he could have had a chance to live a life like that, to love and to laugh with such careless abandon, instead of pining after a man who discarded him before showing up in his apartment so many years later; he hated feeling so utterly _pathetic_.

When he looks back up into Jonghyun’s eyes, his smile isn’t so sad anymore. “Let’s just say that I have a soft spot for star-crossed lovers.”

After that day, Jonghyun doesn’t ever see Jiyong again.

 

~~

 

Unpredictably, it is Jinki who is the most calm.

Much like the eye of the storm, Jinki is the peace at the center of the unrest; Taemin is fidgeting on the couch, a glass of water clutched tightly in his hands; Jonghyun is worried, pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, exchanging tight-lipped smiles with the sorcerer before turning around with a frown; Key is in the kitchen trying to keep calm, head sticking inside of the open refrigerator as it cools the sweat on his skin―he still isn’t sure what the thing actually is.

Minho watches Jinki hum softly as he picks out clothing from the hunter’s closet. They’re not even the vampire’s clothes but he sifts through them anyway, envisioning which of Minho’s many hooded sweatshirts complement his newly dyed blonde hair the most. He still has angry, red fang marks marring his pale back, adding to the silvery scars that Minho left behind centuries ago. He’s put on some weight in the past few months, filling out his jeans quite nicely; Minho had tried not to stare at first before remembering that he was allowed to, and now couldn’t take his eyes off as the elder swayed his hips in time to whatever song he was singing under his breath.

The vampire’s memory had almost completely returned after the unicorn had healed him―celestial beings like Jinki and Yixing were apparently very compatible, which caused the restorative magic to be highly effective in all areas, including his clouded mind­―and had spent most of the day teasing everyone that showed any signs of apprehension around him, just like he used to.

“I just don’t see why you guys are so worried,” Jinki had said last night, curling into Minho’s side and yawning rather loudly. “After the trial, there is no way the Covenant is going to let that fiend live. He’s going to be exterminated and everything will be just fine.”

Minho can appreciate Jinki’s logic, but not everything always went according to plan. Seunghyun may be at the Covenant’s mercy right now, but the man was still a powerful vampire―immortal and an ex-hunter, along with the blood he’d drank from Jinki a few nights ago, Minho wondered if they’d be able to handle someone like that if they decided to come again. On top of that, they didn’t know how many others knew about Jinki’s real roots, and until they were certain, there was basically a big red target on the vampire’s back.

The hunter is broken out of his thoughts when a pair of soft lips presses against his cheek, and he turns to meet Jinki’s mischievous grin. “Stop agonizing about stupid things and let the three stooges outside fret about it instead,” the elder tells him, tugging on Minho’s arm. “You haven’t gone out to do your job in _weeks_. The Covenant isn’t paying you to worry about me, okay?”

Minho can’t help the smile that curves his mouth, letting the older man drag him outside of their room, past the motionless sorcerer on the couch, the pacing werewolf in living room, and the cooling vampire in the kitchen, until they were out the door. It was just after sunset, and news of Seunghyun’s impending trial wouldn’t reach them until morning―the Covenant ends up losing Seunghyun because hell opened up underneath him and interrupted the trial, swallowing the vampire alive before closing again. Jinki suspects that it would be last they see of the man, considering that the Devil didn’t take kindly to failures. No one has a clue what Seunghyun may have pledged him, but they’re all probably better off that way.

Jinki and Minho head out like always, fooling around as they patrol the dark streets of Seoul, listening for trouble between bouts of flirting; they save a woman from being eaten alive and help an injured man forget a rather vicious vampire attack. There is only one death that night and the vampire in question is easily disposed of.

Minho would like to think that this was what they would be like for the rest of their lives, just he and Jinki prowling the streets and cleaning up the trash, but he knows that he was not immortal, that he would die in sixty years or so―if not before―and leave Jinki all alone again. It’s the last thing he wants to do but life is a bitch, and he’s learned to accept that.

Time never seems to be on their side, but that was honestly nothing new; they still had each other, and it was all that really mattered in the end.

 

 

They say that history is doomed to repeat itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyyy, i’m finally fucking DONE. so I decided to give this fic a bittersweet end because honestly there was really no way for it to have a completely happy ending unless i wrote a fight/violence scene, which i don’t know how to write at all (lol). i did plan at first for the dormant vampire blood in minho’s body to awaken and make him immortal, just so he and jinki can live happily ever after, but… it just didn’t fit.
> 
> of course, in my case, i’m going to ignore all of that and pretend that that’s what happens anyway―you are all free to join me lol.
> 
> i can’t believe i’m done with this fic. like, it just feels so surreal. i’ll eventually write a sequel to this, or maybe write a few drabbles based off this AU, i don’t know orz
> 
> anyway, thanks for sticking with me through this―Happy Holidays~! ^u^


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